


Firefly

by Chibihaku



Series: Sophie Shepard [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Earthborn Commander Shepard, F/M, I despise tagging my own work, Mass Effect 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:32:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibihaku/pseuds/Chibihaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lieutenant Shepard died a hero. During the Skyllian Blitz, her actions to save a band of civillians against an unexpected flanking attack earned her the Star of Terra, even as they (presumedly) cost her her life. Her story is as legendary as it is tragic, one known to humans all across the galaxy. A bright spark, snuffed out too young.</p><p>Years later, a batarian slavers outpost is raided by a band of turian mercenaries, shortly after the supposed sale of every last slave in the compound. However, not all is as it seems as in the darkest, smallest cell in the compound, the pirates find something that is very much not supposed to be in the base.</p><p>Not even a few months later, the SSV Normandy pulls into the citadel docks after a confusing, desperate mission lead by Commander Kaidan Alenko, and Captain David Anderson finds himself confronted by a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Audio recording retrieved from the human colony of Elysium, Skyllian Verge; date stamped 2176.**

_“We’ve got reports coming in from the forward base, sir. There’s another group of batarians coming down the flank. We’ll try to draw their fire while you finish the civilian evac.”_

_“Negative, Shepard! Get your team back to base, now. That’s an order, Lieutenant.”_

_“Sorry, Sir. Can’t do that while I can save people here. We leave this position there’s fifty odd civillians that won’t make it past the blast doors._ ”

“ _If you don’t leave your position now, Shepard, there’s no guarantee you’ll make it back in time.”_

 “ _Guess that makes me a hero, then, doesn’t it?”_

_“I don’t need a hero, Kid, I need you and your men to come back alive.”_

_“Can’t come back, Sir._ _There’s kids in the group coming through. We’re going to draw the flank’s fire, see if we can’t get ‘em away from the big group, buy you some time to get those defence turrets working again. There’s only the five of us left anyway now, not that much of a big deal._ ”

“ _Shepard._ ”

“ _Sorry Sir, but we have to do this. All of us here, we don’t have families to come back to. Better us than the civvies.”_

 “… _We’ll keep the blast doors open as long as possible._ ”

“ _Appreciate that, Sir, but we’re too far away from base to get back in time. Make sure they all get through, okay?”_

 _“God speed, Soldier.”_  

“ _Yeah, Sir. Thanks. We’ll take as many of the bastards with us as we can.”_

_\---  
_

**Apartment of Captain Anderson, Human System’s Alliance Navy – Zakera ward, Citadel. Date Stamp, 2176.**

David Anderson stood at his apartment’s small window, looking out at the sky cars that went zipping past, taking strangers to places unknown. On the coffee table, his half-eaten dinner cooled and congealed in its small, white container, an asari eating utensil stuck out of it at an odd angle, greasy napkin crumpled into a ball resting gently against its side. The television chattered noisily to no-one, the feminine reporter’s fake smile and high-pitched voice somehow not quite enough to dispel the feeling of gloom in the darkened room.

On the window sill, and shining glaring neon reflections from Zakera, sat a tumbler of pale amber liquid. It sat ignored or forgotten by the naval captain as he found himself caught up in the sort of introspection to which he was rarely prone.

The root cause of Anderson’s morose thoughts was surprising, though not entirely unexpected, and one which Anderson had brought about onto himself some years earlier, when he had insisted upon the help of the gangly, black haired street urchin who had come to be one of the Alliance’s fastest rising stars. Lieutennant Shepard, who was these days of the Alliance Navy rather than the feral band of children that called themselves ‘the Reds’.  Shepard, the girl who had been training and working her way quickly through the eschelons of the military. Who had, within a couple of years (and with barely any decent literacy skills to speak of – second grade reading average; brilliant numeracy but only when money was involved; shockingly high but unorthodox intelligence; spoke fluent, somewhat… crude… asari common) shot her way up the ranks, and had now been recommended for and accepted into the N7 program.

To say that Anderson wasn’t proud of the girl’s achievements would be a lie, but he also approached them with hesitancy. He knew Shepard a lot better than his supervisors – he knew what drove her, what made her tick. He knew the desperate lengths the girl had gone to during her time on the street, to protect both herself and that feral band of children that did her bidding. He knew that while the military training had mellowed her somewhat, Shepard was still _Shepard_ underneath it all – prone to rash actions and overt (often violent) expressions of emotion. And while he couldn’t blame her for it, she had an instinctual mistrust of authority that even the Alliance couldn’t fully temper. Add to that her nature – a good leader, highly charismatic, but at the same time sneaky, rude and cynical, and one had a combination that would more likely than not lead to disaster.

And they wanted to make his own personal time bomb a member of the most highly skilled, elite task force that the Alliance had to offer.

 _Hell_ , he thought, tossing the data pad down on the table next to the abandoned take-away, _Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe the N7 is just what the girl needs to get her head in the game for once._

_Maybe if I look out my window, I’ll see a volus fly past._

He let out a derisive snort at his own cynicism, remembered his drink and took a sip of it, the burn of the liquor down his throat a reassurance that he didn’t really feel. There wasn’t much he could do about the situation as it was, anyway. Shepard would need his support and guidance, if she was ever to become the hero that he knew was in there somewhere.

Very deep down.

The sudden loud knock at his door snapped him out of his reverie, at the same time his personal terminal alerted him to an incoming message. He frowned and turned towards the machine, placing his drink back down on the window ledge. The light in the corner of the monitor was flashing green – not a high priority then, as they were always red. The knock at his door sounded again, this time with a little more urgency than before.

“Captain Anderson?”  Squeaked a slightly high pitched, but still definitely human voice, “Captain? Please, it’s urgent and I don’t know who else to talk to.”

He sighed and moved towards the door, keying in the combination to open it.

Whoever was on the other side, they weren’t Shepard, even though the girl had promised to visit him as soon as her vessel had docked and the troops had been cleared through customs. If the voice and the urgency it contained hadn’t been a giveaway, the fact that the knocker hadn’t simply hacked her way into his apartment was. (Shepard strongly believed that locks were something invented to keep _people other than Shepard_ out, and knocking was apparently beneath her.)

The door slid open.

On the other side of the door stood a girl that Anderson was sure he knew, though it took him a moment to place her. She was depressingly nondescript – average height and build, muddy brown eyes, plain features and skin caught somewhere between dark and light – and was dressed in an ill-fitting alliance uniform that did nothing to make her even close to memorable. After a moment of desperately racking his brain, Anderson remembered the girl’s name.

“Jade?”

One of Shepard’s kids, His brain filled in, now that it had made the connection to who she was,  Ensign Jade Trader, the sort of girl who would go through life always being overlooked for merely being who she was. Average, plain, utterly brilliant at being those things due to a life where she had trained herself to be overlooked. She had none of the draw of Shepard, eyes didn’t instantly dart in her direction because she walked in the room, and she’d never make herself the centre of attention easily, or for very long. Anderson also knew that all of these things were why Shepard also held the girl in the highest respect – Jade was the sort of person people were likely to overlook, and therefore was a very useful information gatherer in ways that Shepard (even with her natural talent and affinity for the details of espionage) could never hope to match. It was the one field in which Shepard’s charisma worked against her, and Anderson knew that to someone like Shepard, whose very existence had relied on not being seen, it was her greatest failing. Shepard stood out – it was how Anderson had found her in the first place.

“I’m sorry sir.” The girl now said to Anderson, her voice little more than a frightened squeak, “Only I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Calm down.” Anderson said softly, and held out his hands in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. “Speak slowly, and start from the beginning.”

He didn’t bother to ask why she was here, or how she had known his address – those details were as likely to come out in the tale as not, and asking her about them would put her at unease.

“It’s just sir, I… Well, Oh but you must have… “ She swallowed thickly and blinked a few times in rapid succession.

Anderson placed a hand on the small of her back and led her trembling form to his wingchair, gingerly sitting her down. She slumped as soon as she hit the cushioning, grateful despite herself.

“Wait here.” He ordered softly, and moved to the small kitchenette. Once there, he took a glass off the drying rack and filled it with water. Carrying this back to her, he noticed that she now had her arms wrapped around herself and was staring dully at the tabletop in front of her. He stepped across the room to her and placed his hand upon her shoulder, inwardly cursing when she jumped and shot him a look of wide-eyed panic.

Instantly, he stepped away, placing the glass down on the table and holding his hands up in yet another gesture of submission. The last thing he needed was for the near-hysterical girl to actually become hysterical.

“It’s just some water.” He said, gesturing to the glass on the table. She shot him a wary look and wrapped her hands around the glass, sipping at it’s contents with only one more slightly unnerved look in his direction. She didn’t thank him, he didn’t take it personally.

He took the seat on the far side of the room and placed his elbows on his knees, looking at the girl over the tops of his folded hands. “Now.” He said, “Tell me why you’re here.”

The girl blinked in surprised incomprehension, before something dawned across her features and she looked at him incredulously. “You mean you don’t _know_?” She demanded.

Anderson stared straight back at her over his hands. “What is it that I am supposed to be aware of, Ensign?”

The use of her title was a reprimand, but she ignored it, her expression still one of unguarded shock and raw emotion.

Jade met his eyes.

Anderson suddenly felt a vice grip around his heart and squeeze, and some instinct told him what the girl was going to say before she said it.

“Shepard’s dead.”

\---

**A Letter From the Desk of Rear Admiral Steven Hackett to Captain David Anderson, dated July 27 th, 2176.**

Captain,

We regret to inform you that one Lieutenant Shepard, Sophie (Enlistment number 2453GL81) has been listed as Missing in Action (M.I.A) following a skirmish with batarian raiders on the contested borders of the planet Elysium, located within the Skyllian Verge.

It is with great sympathy that we inform you of Shepard’s status and we wish to reassure you that every effort will be made to recover her person or body, wherever they may be.  Her disappearance is believed to be a direct result of engaging enemy forces and we regret to inform you that the chances of recovering her alive are slim.

Due to outstanding displays of heroism and bravery in the face of fire, the United Systems Alliance has awarded Shepard with the Star of Terra Medallion, which (as you know) is an award only given to those who have proven themselves to be wholly dedicated to the lives of those they serve. Also in recognition of her commitment to duty in the face of fire, she is to be awarded with the rank of Staff Commander, a rank that will be issued to her on her confirmed return to duty, or upon confirmation of her death.

We hope that this will be of some comfort to you in this difficult time.

 

_(Post script annendum;_

_Anderson,_

_I know you cared for the girl like a daughter. She went out a hero, you can be proud._

_Hackett out.)_

**\---**

**On the Edge of Batarian Space, in the Terminus Systems; Date Stamped 2182.**

In a darkened room in the basement of an abandoned mining outpost sits a woman in chains.

She was lost to time an unknowable amount of years ago, when a human colony she can’t remember the name of was hit and pillaged and destroyed. She knew that the colony was important to her once, but can no longer remember why that would be the case, or why she should try to recall the reason. In the same vein as the knowledge that once she cared about the Outside, she knows that there were things in the Outside that mattered to her, things that have long since lost any semblance of meaning – nonsense names, phantom items. Even the people (she knows there were some, she knows she wasn’t as hopeless a creature as to have no-one); people that have no faces or names, only a sense that they _were_ , and that who they were had mattered once to her.

Back when she fancied herself important, she had wondered if _she_ still mattered to people somewhere Outside the room, in that mythical place that she knew existed but was as far away to her as their distant memories. If someone had, once upon a time, looked for her, cried for her, committed her face to a fading memory. Dust, she thinks, floating on a solar wind – if such a thing wasn’t merely one of her _own_ made-up memories.

There were getting to be a disturbing number of those.

She used to keep track of what was real and what wasn’t. Of which things were possible and which weren’t. But the dark is a funny place, and the memory even stranger, and though she can’t remember the exact point she realised her mind was gone, she still knew with very much certainty that it was. Everything she knows is as blurred as she is, smudged and hidden under dirt and grime, colours all muted to a brownish grey she can’t see in the lightless room. Her eyes don’t bother to open, anymore, lashes sealed shut together with grease, her mind holds the unreal and fantastical in as high an esteem as the boundaries of her cell (seven feet by seven feet. Two and a half paces in either direction, walls made of brick and mortar, twelvehundredandsixtytwo bricks, one concrete slab, one broken light bulb, one cold steel door). Her clothes are torn to rags, held on only because she can’t bother to find the energy to strip them from herself, in the places where they’ve fused to her skin with dried blood. Her hands and feet are bare and gritty with dirt, scabs on her knuckles cracked and puffy and sticky to touch.

She hears a series of noises Outside. It breaks the monotony and makes her smile, wincing when her chafed lips crack, the taste of metal slipping into her gluey mouth. She doesn’t know what the noises mean, but she can half-identify what they are, screams and shouts and the occasional loud staccato of something.

(A word floats out of her memory, _gunfire._ She has no idea what the significance of that word is, or what it means for her, or if it’s even a real word. She dismisses it with a small frown.)

The noise dies out some moments or years later (time does funny things in the dark, she’s long stopped keeping track, but the bloodied grooves made with her nails are still there in the wall from when she wasn’t mad and when she hoped for rescue – maybe she was always mad, then?) and the sudden silence that descends seems somehow absolute. There’s a breath of a whisper at the back of her neck, some forgotten sense tells her something has changed, that this situation is different than any that sounds have heralded before.

Her door cracks open.

The sudden light is harsh even against her eyelids and she flinches back from it, chains clinking obnoxiously loud in her ears. The air smells wrong – sweet, somehow, like it hasn’t sat in the dark around her for years. She doesn’t like it, shifts her shoulders and backs herself subtly away from the invading light and noise and scents. This is wrong, this isn’t her world. This is Outside.

“Spirits.” Breathes a voice she doesn’t know. It’s low-pitched and thrums in the dark, making her wince away from its strangeness. The voice gets louder. “Someone’s still alive down here!”

 

 


	2. The Clockwork Officer and the Wind Up Girl

Garrus Vakarian stood in front of the desk of his commanding officer and tried desperately to keep a lid on his temper. He counted to ten, and when that didn’t work, to fifty. He shifted his weight slightly from one foot to the other and back. He clenched his hands behind his back, and his mandibles to his jaw. Frustration itched through every part of him.

He was being stonewalled. Again. This time, on a promising lead into a turian mercenary gang that was becoming well established on the edge of the Terminus systems. He’d been tracking the progress of a cruiser ship on which the one of the main members of the band had stowed away, and had found himself told once again to back off. To step away. To let it go. And he _knew_ that the gang had ties with C-Sec, that someone in the department was crooked. The lead he’d had a few months back, when that ship had come in (what was it’s name? Mayfly? Mayflower? Something human sounding) and all of his investigations into the business of those on board had been stopped at the post. It was happening again, and it was more than a little irritating.

“Look, Vakarian.” Said Pallin, languidly reclined behind his desk, claws folded together and shoulders spread, legs crossed over each other, “I know you’re frustrated.” There was an annoyed edge in Pallin’s tone that belied his calm expression.

Garrus clenched his jaw tight against any reply he could have made and started counting to one hundred.

“you have to see it from a political point of view.” Pallin continued. “The ship they left on is owned by Benezia T’soni. T’soni’s a Matriarch.”

“So I’m just supposed to _stop_ looking into the Merc ring?” Garrus demanded, before slamming his mouth shut again.

His superior shot him a levelling look – smug bastard. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward on the desk, claws rapping against the glass top. “You know it’s suicide to go after a Matriarch, Vakarian. Not worth it for one minor gang.”

“Yeah, but that’s not why you’re stopping this.”

Oh, he was really going to have to get a hold on his mouth and stop it from saying things before he had a chance to think them through.

 “Yes,” Said the Executor, “That too. Benezia’s ties with Saren grant her immunity. Even if she didn’t have them I’d still be telling you to back off.”

“All due respect, Sir, but we know Saren’s crooked.” Oh, his mouth was on a roll today, the part of him not consumed with anger noted. He was surprised that the older Turian hadn’t snapped his neck for being impertinent yet.

“You do good work, Vakarian, but you have to let this vendetta go. Saren’s council, we can’t touch him. Spirits, boy, you don’t even know that he’s crooked, you’re going on your gut.”

Garrus let out a low, frustrated noise. His hands balled into fists at his side as he finally managed to bite back yet another angry retort. He wanted to point out to the man that every investigation that had smelt bad recently all seemed to lead straight to Saren, and that new ship of his, the one he’d picked up on the farthest rims of the Terminus. No one had seen it’s make before, and damn if the man couldn’t afford to commission something like that, even on a Spectre salary. And everything that had been happening recently on the Citadel seemed to point to some outside sort of involvement. Garrus wasn’t usually one to be superstitious, but people were right – the keepers did seem to be behaving oddly recently.

Not to mention that any case Garrus got that seemed to point in the Spectre’s direction was suddenly and unapologetically ground to dust – if not outright, then through legal muddle and massive piles of paperwork that made it too damn difficult to do his job.

Something smelt bad about Saren.

Garrus desperately wanted to find out what it was.

However, he knew he’d already let his mouth run enough today so he kept a lid on all of his complaints. If he said much more he’d be on desk duty for a month, and in his mind that was still slightly worse than being stonewalled at every turn.

The Executor sighed. “Try to focus on the small cases for a while. I understand the frustration, and I know it’d do you good to score a few wins.”

“Not satisfying ones.” Garrus growled under his breath. Pallin levelled a cold glare at him.

“We don’t do this job for the satisfaction, Vakarian.” The man’s tone was final, and with a nod of his head at the younger officer, Garrus knew he had been dismissed. He left the room, sighing once the door slid closed behind him. He made his way down the long corridor to the main entrance, and then stepped into the lift that would take him to the Presidium. He needed to clear his head, and he figured a walk to get a bite to eat would probably suit the bill.

Anger burnt low and hot in his gut. An anger which was made worse by the knowledge that he couldn’t completely blame his boss; as much as he wanted to punch the man in the throat. Garrus knew, logically, that any investigation featuring a turian Spectre and an asari Matriarch was so loaded with inter-species politics that it was bound to be stopped at the post by the council. Still, he felt neutered by the unwillingness of the council to stop an obviously rogue agent. Politics be damned, Garrus had the feeling that lives would be in danger if Saren was left to his own devices, and Garrus had now all but been told to butt out and keep his head down. To walk away.

Funny how his father had _prided_ in C-Sec so much.

After an eternity, the elevator doors slid open, and Garrus stepped out into the artificial sunshine.  He closed his eyes in response to the warmth flooding over his plates as he stepped out onto the many pathways that wrapped themselves around the presidium. A keeper wandered past him on it’s way to areas unknown, and he stepped off in the other direction to it, towards one of his favourite dextro restaurants. His path was brisk, but meandering as he passed through the open grassy areas and over one of the many bridges suspended over the presidium lakes. He glared at the krogan statue out of habit more than anything else as he passed, a habit born from dealing with one-too-many mercenaries more than anything else. Still in the back of his mind burnt the anger, but it was more subdued now, more tainted with reason. It made sense when he thought about it, not to move on the big players of the operation until they had more of the smaller players behind them. Get a couple of the little ones to flip and the big ones would fall.

He nodded to himself as a plan of action began forming in his mind. He’d work on the small cases for a while, like Pallin had suggested. He’d let the smuggling ship go, but he’d chase down one or two of their contacts. There were leads he had that he’d neglected when trying to get to the Mayfly that he’d go back and look at now.

He stopped and leaned on a railing as he let his plan of attack form in his mind. First, he’d check up a few facts, follow up on some alibis, then he’d start pressing into the small time crooks. Maybe if he eventually had enough of the little guys put away, Pallin would recognise that there was a problem and would let him go after the bigger fish.

Spirits, it didn’t even have to be Garrus investigating – even someone like Harkin on a token investigation would be better than this continual insistence on inactivity!

He clamped down on his indignation and forced himself to think around it. The best place for him to start was chasing down Flynn Mackinnon, one of the small-time information brokers that was known to have connections with more shady dealers. The human had a shaky alibi that he could chase up, a claim that he’d been seeing the Consort on a day where some rather token information had changed hands. It was as good a place as any to begin, so Garrus nodded, straightened out of his slouch and turned.

…He was already in front of the Consort’s chambers.

…Oh.

He steeled himself and shook his head, doing his best to ignore the slight smirk on the door greeters face as he approached her.  She was an asari, with light violet skin and white markings on her face. She was shapely as all asari were, but there was a slight roundness to her face and body that made her more cute than sexy. Her dress tried to make up for it, with cut outs that revealed her stomach and the gentle slope of her shoulders. Something to entice people in, warm and friendly and inviting.

“Trying to work your way up to it, were you?” She said in a manner that was more flirtatious than teasing.

“Something like that.” Garrus responded, pulling up his identification on his omnitool. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d let me in for a moment, I’ve got a lead that I was needing to chase up.”

The smirk on the asari’s face faded and her expression turned into something hard. “Do you have a warrant, officer?”

He shook his head and let his face break into what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “No,” He said, “I’m just chasing up an alibi and all I really need is a confirmation from your books that someone was here.”

“Well then, come back with an affidavit, officer, and we’ll talk.” The asari smiled. “I am sorry and I hope you do understand but we cannot give out client information as it is a breach of confidentiality. Our services can sometimes be… frowned upon by certain groups, and I would hate for one of our clients to suffer falsely.”

“If you don’t want your client to suffer falsely,” Garrus pressed, “You could just check the name for me. Really, he’s already admitted to being here, we’re just making sure that he was. It’s just a routine follow-up.”

The asari frowned, clearly not pleased with the turn the conversation had taken, and Garrus thought she was aware that she had argued herself into something of a corner. After a long moment (in which Garrus attempted to quell the nervous turnings of his stomach) the asari stepped aside from the doorway, gesturing for Garrus to enter.

“Of course,” she said, “I’ll need a name for this client, and I want it noted that this is _highly_ unusual.”

Garrus’ jaw plates widened in a grin. “Thank you.” He said as he stepped past her into the cool, softly lit interior. The asari fell into step behind him, another quickly stepping in to her place at the chamber door.  The chamber beyond was quite busy – people milled about the tastefully appointed room, lounging on stylish sofas and on the cushions set in sunk recesses of the floor. Pretty asari in luxurious dresses wandered the room, passing out drinks and finger food and making unassuming small talk.

“What was the suspect’s name?” Asked the asari behind him as she gestured towards an empty chair.

Garrus set himself down gingerly, despite looking comfortable, the chair was anything but. “He’s not actually a suspect.” He said. “I’m just chasing up a lead, clearing out some facts. We need the alibi to help us pin down another guy – clearing up out ‘reasonable doubt.’” That wasn’t _…strictly_ true, but it was always better to have people believe that you weren’t out to hurt their clients or their business. The asari frowned – Garrus could tell she wasn’t completely buying it. “His name is Mackinnon. He should have been here on the…” He pulled up a file on his omnitool “The twelfth. Some time around 19:00 Standard.”

The asari nodded. “Of course.” She said again. “I’ll go check our systems for you. If you would wait here for me, I will be back momentarily.”

That said, she moved out of the main room, disappearing to places unknown while Garrus sat and twiddled his claws together. He wasn’t an idiot – he knew she was just as certainly checking up on him before she checked up on the client, but it was worth the slight embarrassment of a background check to know he had a place to start again from.

The pause that the asaris departure caused afforded him some time to look about the chambers. In amongst the expected politicians and power brokers of the citadel were some unexpected faces – marines from a few different races sat together in rings around the room, a hanar swayed gently as it spoke to one of the asari servers (possibly about the delights of the enkindlers.) In one corner, even, sat a few barefaced turians.

There was a sudden, loud crash from the other side of the room.

Garrus’ head shot up in the direction it had come from, along with most of the rest of the people in the chamber. The smiles of the asari suddenly became strained as there was a yelp, and a shriek from behind a closed door at the end of the room. A string of asari curse words filtered through along with a panicked “WATCH OUT!” and another crash. Attendants were trying to drag the focus of the clients away from what was happening, with smiles and laughter and stilted conversation, but as the sounds became louder, and there was another shriek and more swearing, the room became entirely focused on the drama unfolding beyond the door’s red interface.

“ _Watch out! She’s going to- urk!”_

_“Catch her, she’s going for the door!”_

Garrus was sitting forward in his seat, fixated on what was happening. He was half-aware of the attendants smiling and apologising for the ruckus, but he ignored them in favour of watching the red light on the door’s interface which was now blinking and spinning quickly.

“ _Agh! I can’t move! That clever little bitch!”_

The entire room was watching the panel, as it flashed and spun, flashed and spun.

“She can’t possibly get through the new encryptions…” Whispered one of the asari near Garrus. She sounded uncertain.

The light on the door blinked green.

The door whooshed back into the wall, and like a bullet from a gun, _something_ launched out from behind it in a swirl of black hair and dark purple silks. It launched over the table that was in front of it, sending drinks and papers flying, and knocking over an urn that crashed to the ground with the sound of breaking china. Startled patrons squawked and toppled out of the way as the thing blazed past them, ducking and weaving through the obstacles of the chamber.

“GRAB HER!”

The attendants launched into motion, trying to snatch any part of the long-limbed whirlwind as it rushed past them. However, the creature at the heart of the motion was not only fast, but precise and purposeful – Garrus marvelled at the almost-military precision of her (For he realised in surprise that it was a human female that the asari were trying to subdue) movements, even if they lacked somewhat in grace or style. She dodged outspread arms and scrambling legs with an efficiency of movement that Garrus thought rivalled a well-trained turian.

“Jane, stop!” An attendant came running out of the room that the human had come from, swathed in a field of blue biotics, eyes glowing white. “Jane!” She threw her hands forward. A focused biotic push that knocked the fleeing girl in the back. She was flung forward, and Garrus’ hands instinctively came up to catch her by the shoulders as she went headfirst into his lap. She staggered, balanced herself and looked up at him.

Her clear green eyes caught his in a moment that seemed to freeze, as he took in the wild determination in her face and the stubborn set of her chin. Her hair curled over her shoulders, her breath caught at the air between them.

Her eyebrows tilted downward and her mouth twisted. She jerked down and backwards, making his hands slip and sending him off balance as she spun away from him in another of those military-precise movements. She ducked a reaching arm, leapt over a fallen chair and was gone out the chamber doorway.

The entire ordeal, from start to finish, couldn’t have taken any more than about twenty seconds, and the room took a collected moment of silence to recover from it. Then everyone started talking at once, demanding explanations, offering reassurances, _gossiping._ The attendants went into damage control, businessmen and politicians started threatening legal and media action, the turians in the corner stared around the room in bewilderment.

Only one person noticed the C-Sec officer bid his hasty retreat out of the Consort’s chambers.

Shai’ira frowned.

 

\---

 

**A letter from ‘The Consort’ to Officer Garrus Varakian, Citadel Security. Date Stamped April 2nd, 2183.**

Officer,

It has come to my attention that today you were witness to an event which may (to your experienced eyes) appear to be the result of actions illegal in nature. I refer, of course, to the incident you witnessed that involved the seeming detention and subsequent escape of a young human female.

I wish to assure you of the legality of the situation, if there ever was doubt in your mind. The girl in question is a ward of the Council, with an unknown identity who has been placed into the care deemed most suitable for her. The placement was made by your very own Executor Pallin and was made in accordance with the ideals of superior care and treatment for her.

It has come to my attention that you are currently pursuing her for reasons that are your own. I request that if you make contact, you strongly encourage her to return to those who are trying to help her, and encourage her to seek out professional help for her own sake. Her mental instability is believed to be linked to a post-traumatic stress disorder, and the asari that are caring for her are only trying to assist her. (I must also note that while I do not advocate physical force, I strongly emphasise her need to be returned, even if it is not her will to do so.)

Officer – I must insist that it is your duty as a member of Citadel Security to adhere to my instructions, and, on a more personal note, I request that you endeavour to return her before she rips yet another dress.

Yours most truly,

The Consort Shai’ira.

 

\---

 

**Onboard the Alliance Ship SSV Normandy, en-route to the Citadel. Date Stamped 2183.**

Captain David Anderson liked to think that he was an easy person to get along with. He was genuinely fair to his people, while still retaining the firmness required of his command. He was able to crack a joke or two with his people, even while he could be a bit of a hardass sometimes. But that was the military for you – it didn’t matter what happened the rest of the time, but when your superiors said jump, you jumped because you already knew how high. Anderson liked to think that he was well-liked and well-respected, even in those times when his patience was sorely tested.

Like now.

Anderson frowned at the report in front of him: the one that was telling him his XO was unconscious in the medbay; that a spectre and an ensign were dead; and that the only word he had to go on as to why this was the case was that of someone _not on his crew._ He was trying his level best to keep his temper in check. It didn’t help that Williams’ name had a spotty history, and it didn’t help that a spectre died on his watch and it _certainly_ didn’t help matters that the report read like a clusterfuck.

Geth technology, spaceships of unknown origin, prothean technology, Saren (his jaw clenched), about a thousand other things that couldn’t be confirmed due to the inconvenient destruction of all the evidence in a refinery explosion. And Anderson had to pull from this mess some semblance of sense with which to report to his superiors.

He frowned and looked at the datapads spread around him in distaste. _Damage control._

_What claims do I deal with first?_

The news was all bad. Sensational – like it was out of a b-list vid. He half-expected reports of crazy insectoid creatures and giant spore-releasing plants to go along with the reports of mechanical zombies and possessed robots. But at least there were some facts he could confirm. Nihlus was dead, and wasn’t killed by his crew – tracking locations and a post mortem made that leap of logic impossible. There _were_ geth. There were recognisable patterns in the unknown signatures they had been reading from the colony which helped confirm the geth. As for the other information, the mechanical creatures, the spike-like structures, the unknown origin of the ship – there was no real evidence for or against, but the presence of the geth did suggest a vessel that they came on, and the lack of heat emission signatures for this ship was suitable hole enough for investigation. Of course, (and to Anderson’s great disgust) there was nothing, _nothing_ , with which he could nail that slippery bastard Saren to the scene.

“Captain,” Pressley’s voice filtered over the intercom, “Admiral Hackett on the line for you.”

Anderson sighed and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Of course he is.” He muttered, and then louder, “Patch him through.”

There was a brief whir of static, and then Hackett’s voice filled the room.

“Anderson, I’m receiving troubling reports. Care to fill me in on what’s been going on?”

“I’d be lying if I said I knew.” The captain replied. “My reports are confused and my only point of confirmation is currently unconscious in the sick bay. For certain, all I know is I’ve got a dead spectre, a dead ensign and a situation that stinks in all the wrong ways.”

“What can you tell me?” There was no reproach or annoyance in Hackett’s tone, it was simply a question being asked.

Anderson liked Hackett for that reason. He was no-nonsense, but also ready to listen to his subordinates side of the tale before he made judgements.

“Nothing I’ve got solid evidence for so far.” Anderson admitted, “One of the marines on the colony was still alive – Gunnery Chief Williams. She and a colonist have both stated that there was a ship of unknown make at the colony – one which was responsible for releasing the geth and the destruction of the colony. The colonist has also stated that the murder of the Spectre was the result of an altercation with another turian.”

“Did the colonist recognise them?”

Anderson didn’t bother to keep the frown off his face or the disgust from his voice as he replied. “Saren Arterius.”

There was a contemplative pause on the other end of the connection. “I don’t need to tell you how potentially damaging this could be.” Hackett said at length, “Play this carefully, Anderson.

“I’m waiting until Alenko wakes up before making any formal reports, Sir.”

“See that you do.” The admiral replied. “However, that isn’t everything that I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Sir?”

“My agents are reporting that C-Sec is trying to keep something very quiet.” The man explained. “I’ve received word that approximately four months ago the turian ship Mayfly docked in Lower Zakera. C-Sec looked the other way – not surprising given that the ship now belongs to a band of turian mercenaries.”

“Permission to speak freely?” Anderson requested. He didn’t really need to ask with Hackett, but it was more a sign of respect than anything else.

“Granted.”

“This is white-collar crime, Admiral, what does it have to do with the Alliance?”

“If that was all this was, I’d be inclined to agree.” Hackett told him. “However, the docking fee for the vessel was paid by the Consort in exchange for unspecified goods.”

“Still, it’s not really a human concern.”

“Reports _also_ indicate that the ship was returning from batarian space when it docked.”

Here, Anderson paused, rifling some of the datapads in front of him as the implications sunk in. “Slavers?” He asked.

“Possible.” Hackett told him. “The _modus operandi_ of the Mayfly seems to be hitting slaver dens just after their auctions. More money, less collateral.”

“Never mind that it’s people who are bought and sold.” Anderson swallowed the lump of disgust forming in his throat, and the bitter aftertaste of memories that batarians wouldn’t stoop to killing anyone who tried to get in the way of them and their ‘property.’

“The batarians aren’t the issue.” Hackett said, breaking Anderson out of his mood before it had really set in. He swallowed back his anger and settled himself firmly back into the role of soldier. ( _Seven years. Seven years and it still damn well hurts_.) “The issue is the cargo. It’s not like the Mayfly to trade in people, but they’ve never hit a compound with living beings in it before.”

“You think they made a mistake and then maybe tried a little profiteering.”

“Maybe. However, the sale to Shai’ira indicates some more honest intentions.” There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “We don’t know anything for sure yet,” Hackett said, “But if the batarians are involved, and if humans are being sold as slaves on the Citadel, the Alliance needs to work out what happened in that compound, and quickly.”

Anderson nodded, even though the man on the other end of the line wouldn’t have been able to see it. “I’ll see what I can do, Sir.”

“Good. Hackett out.”

The line went dead, and Anderson’s personal terminal beeped as he received the files he would need to begin his investigation. Pressley’s voice filtered back over the intercom. “Captain, Alenko is awake, and he wishes to speak with you.”

Anderson swallowed and hung his head for a moment, breathing out in a long sigh. He straightened, shook out his joints and stood. “I’ll be there momentarily.” He said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Gosh. Garrus, why are you so difficult to write? I swear, the rest of this chapter took me like... two seconds, but heaven forbid I could get you to walk from C-Sec to the Consort's chambers.


	3. A Game of Cat and Mouse (Or Varren and Pyjack, Depending on Your Origin)

**Emily Wong, reporting for the Citadel News Network. Report dated April 2 nd, 2183.**

New reports of Ambassador Donnell Udina’s quest to secure humanity’s place in the upper echelon of the Council species have once again thrown the man into the spotlight. Udina, in a sudden press conference arranged earlier today, has admitted that he and several members of the Human System’s Alliance navy will be approaching the advocates from the Council races later this evening. The meeting will address the disturbing reports surrounding events at the human colony Eden Prime.

The fate of the colony has (surprisingly) prompted the Ambassador to lodge a formal complaint of ‘Conduct Unbecoming a Council Agent’ in regards to the veteran Spectre, Saren Arterius.

While this is not the first time that humanity has levelled such a report at the turian Spectre (the most notable being that of the reaction to the veteran’s assessment of then-Spectre Candidate David Anderson) it is also important to note that Arterius has never been found guilty of any claim. Understandably, Udina’s motives have been placed in question by the Council and its surrounding delegates.

Apart from charges of harassment that could be levelled at the human Embassy, it is also important to take into consideration the _political_ motivations surrounding the case. One can’t help but consider the significant bias of the Relay 319 incident (or ‘First Contact War’ as it is referred to in some human circles) and how the races of the accuser and accused will affect the proceedings. While most believe the rivalry of the war to be long-since a non-issue, there are some who cannot seem to ‘bury the hatchet’ (to use a human idiom.)

The principal speakers at the audience will be human Spectre candidate Commander Kaidan Alenko and the aforementioned Captain David Anderson. Anderson’s relationship with the accused must be considered in any dialogue on the matter, along with the possible influence he may be having on his charge.

However, if Arterius is found guilty of the claims presented, this will be a great shift in the landscape of human-Council relations. This audience could therefore be the clarion of human advancement in Citadel space – or its final death toll.

And now to Alanis with her take on this season’s fashion trends!

 

\---

**Near the Flux Casino and Bar, Upper Zakera Ward, The Citadel. Date Stamped, 2183.**

The orange glow that came from her wrist was a surprising comfort to her where she was tucked in against the wall and the public terminal she was trying to hack. Surprising, really, because she didn’t remember feeling uncomfortable in tight places, (although, to be fair, her memory _was_ shot to Hell) and the darkness was always more of a friend to her than the light. But the codes that scrolled in her peripheral vision, lighting her face orange as she fiddled with wires under the terminal made her feel almost safe in this station populated by people she couldn’t trust.

The codes that danced down the screen were slightly different than she remembered, the patterns and logic that she usually relied on in place of actual _reading_ (too difficult to bother with at speed) were slightly skewed from the patterns in her mind. Whether it was her, or the code itself she couldn’t say, but the subtleties picked and twisted at her, itching at the edges of her mind.

The timer subroutine of the omnitool beeped at her, twice.

She regarded it with a twinge of annoyance. Five seconds left before she was permanently locked out of the machine.

She frowned and forced a backdoor in her coding. It was a blunt instrument string, fashioned to get in fast and dirty, but in doing so it left a trail so obvious that even a first year forensics officer could find it. But for all it was quick and dirty, it also _worked_ – she was in, past the requests for account details that the terminal was demanding, past the restrictions that normally would have been placed on her access.

The trickiness of the hack, however, had not come from these trivialities, but from the subroutines that demanded _payment_ for services rendered. These, the code blundered through; leaving an easy trace that now gave her limited time at the console. Perhaps they could have been avoided had she kept the credit chit she had lifted from a salarian worker (and perhaps also that a salarian so careless with his money as to not notice a pickpocket deserved to have his account charged) but her judgement told her that anything traceable had to be abandoned.

 A person may not immediately notice a stolen credit chit, after all, but they definitely would notice a charge for a second-hand omnitool of arguable age being taken from their account.

She reset the timer subroutine, giving herself fifteen minutes before she killed access to the terminal. It wasn’t a generous estimate – if anything it was cautious – but it was one that ensured she had enough time to do what she had to do if she moved quickly. She tapped her wrist and the omnitool flickered out before she peeked around the personal terminal. When she was certain in the knowledge that she had no observers, she neatly slipped up and over the side of the machine, tucking herself into its seat and bringing its monitor flaring to life. She tugged the restrictive dress she was wearing (dirty and stained from the floor) and tried to ignore the way the silk slicked its way over her scars every time she moved.  The sleeves, too, presented their problems – they were longer and looser than could ever be considered practical, and she spent half her time fighting to keep them from interfering with her fine motor skills. Pushing them up her arms yielded no gain – the slippery material refused to stay creased, falling back over her hands in a way that grated on her nerves.

A keyboard flared into life in front of her, and she tapped at it, flinging a destination IP into the extranet and praying for a speedy return. She’d bypassed the normal traffic flow of the terminals, meaning that she wouldn’t be held up too long, but any speed shorter than a thirty second turnaround was sure to raise a few eyebrows. While she waited for the response, she let her omnitool flare back into life, tapping a few codes that would enable her to keep a running perimeter check at all times.

For safety’s sake, if nothing else.

Her hair fell over her eyes as a window popped into view on the terminal, one which asked for remote clearance to the information she was trying to access. Her lip curled in disgust, as she pushed the locks out of her eyes again, grateful only for the fact that she wasn’t forced to put up with anything so irritating as _makeup_ on her otherwise ‘beautified’ features.

She didn’t blame the asari that were holding her, nor did she actively have anything against them, but by the same token, if one of those blue bitches came at her with a makeup brush _again_ , she wouldn’t stop at just biting them.  And damned if they wouldn’t let her near an info terminal, like she was some sort of simpleton that couldn’t handle the extranet. Breaking out had become her only option, really.

She was saved from dwelling on the past times she had attempted to coup (those embarrassing moments when the sheer noise and light of the world outside the chambers had stopped her dead, so different from dead silence and darkness, with only the clanking of chains as companions) by the soft beep of the terminal, alerting her that the machine had been left without action for more than fifteen seconds. She frowned at herself, hastily typing in a string of numbers that she knew as well as her own name, and then followed this up with a password that consisted of someone else’s name and the day they died. She tried to ignore the unpleasant cold that crawled its way up her spine as she waited again (Another thirty seconds, her countdown was fast slipping away from her) for the return packets, the access to the database she needed, her history to come flooding back to her fingertips.

That was the worst part – the knowledge that there were gaps in her mind, places where her sanity feared to step in her own body. The over-reliance on instinct in the place of anything that resembled reason – even this, this pursuit of knowledge was more to satisfy some sort of inherent desire than it was wilful thinking. She had no idea really what she was looking for in these databases, even, only that she needed to follow her fingers and she’d know it when she found it.

“Welcome back, Commander Shepard.” The voice of the military VI was smooth and melodic, a gentle reassurance. “Your login to Alliance Command has been noted for posterity. As a general reminder, all military personnel are to attempt to access their accounts at least once every two days unless given previous clearance by their direct commanding officer. It has been seven years since you last accessed your account. This discrepancy has been logged.”

She ran her fingers over the keyboard in front of her, in a series of interface commands that let her access the information that she needed. She ignored the implications of the VI, as the timer on her omnitool continued it’s slow and steady countdown.

Shepard was hunting.

Now if she only knew what for.

 

\---

 

**Audio log taken from Arcturus Station, Date stamped April 2 nd, 2183.**

_“Admiral, Sir, if I might have a moment of your time?”_

_“Farrier, what can I do for you?”_

_“Sir, we’ve just received an interesting series of transmissions from the Citadel base. Requests for information have been coming from a hacked terminal in the Zakera Wards area.”_

_“Is it one of our operatives?”_

_“No, Sir. The reports have been flagged as suspicious, and are being looked into as a possible security breach. Here, take a look.”_

_“…Well, I’ll be the son of a vorcha. Is this data accurate?”_

_“We’re not sure, Sir. The current indication is that the terminal was hacked using several outdated methods, before a more innovative blunt access code was forced into the system, but, once in the system, the user gave accurate data on the first entry prompt.”_

_“And this was the first account that they tried to gain access to?”_

_“Yes, Sir.”_

_“Hmm.”_

_“Sir?”_

_“Get your people on this, Lieutenant. Find out why our systems were just pinged by a Ghost from_ Flux _of all places.”_

_“Yes sir. But sir…”_

_“Yes, Farrier?”_

_“Should I inform Captain Anderson of this, sir?”_

_“…No. Not until we know anything concrete. In the meantime I want you to find out who is responsible for this and shut them down. Our heroes should be allowed to let lie.”_

\---

 

**Near Flux Casino and Bar, Upper Zakera Ward, The Citadel. Date Stamp 2183.**

The girl was seated at a public terminal, obviously irritated.

The omnitool on her wrist was flaring bright orange, lighting up her face and allowing Garrus time to study her that he hadn’t had when she escaped from him at the Consort’s chambers. She was older than he had first realised – although human ages were hard to gague, he figured her for her late twenties at least, possibly a little older. Something about her screamed youth, however, in some strange dichotomy that was at odds with the haggardness of her face, and the stiff way she held herself. She was currently inputting a series of commands into the omnitool she was using, causing it to flare brighter and brighter under the strain.

It was an old unit, several years at least, and severely outdated. Garrus idly wondered where she had obtained it, because she certainly hadn’t had it back at the chambers.

He noticed as well that her face was set into a human snarl. The terminal she was seated at was making various noises of protest as she fiddled with the omnitool, until eventually the keyboard and screen that the machine was displaying flickered and died with a small gurgle that caused her to launch forward and physically slap at the machine in obvious frustration. When this failed to work, she focused on the omnitool further, shoulders set in tension, fingers flying over the interface, stopping every so often to shake her sleeve back.

Garrus wasn’t entirely sure why he had hunted her down, if he was truly honest with himself. Part of it he knew was the tiniest amount of political sensibility that his father had forced into him through sheer power of will (even Garrus knew that when someone as politically savvy as the Consort made you a request, you did your very best to follow through with it). He moved closer to the girl (woman, really, he reminded himself) slowly and quietly, doing his best not to spook her in case the Consort’s letter was to be believed. (He reminded himself as well that he was _supposed_ to believe it, he was paid to believe it and it was how the system worked. He also reminded himself that disgust was not the reaction he was supposed to be having towards that sentiment.) He ambled through the crowd in a very non-deliberate manner, eyes and neck craning around, taking in the sights and sounds of the Wards this close to the markets and the casino. Members of all species flitted around, most heading off to places unknown, a few stopping to take in the view afforded by the large windows that lined the far wall of the ward.

Garrus also allowed himself a moment to reflect on the fact that whether through accident or design, the girl had chosen the least approachable public terminal in the area – it was outside of the main thoroughfare, but located in a position close to a wall, affording a near panoramic view of the open space in which it sat. It was well within distance of multiple exits, and there were several routes the girl could take away from the machine if she needed a good getaway.

So it was even more important for Garrus to approach her without her noticing him, and even less likely for him to be able to do so.

But for the moment, however, the omnitool and the unresponsive terminal were capturing her attention, so he found himself ambling ever closer to her, without her actively noticing his presence.

Or, at least, that was what Garrus thought he was doing, right up until he stepped just a little too close to her.

Her head snapped up and around, her eyes locking with his as she pushed out of the terminal in one smooth movement, accompanied by the ripping sound of fabric as the dress caught and tore on one of the public terminal’s edges. Her omnitool, so bright and overclocked mere moments before, shut off instantly, leaving behind it a bright spot in Garrus’ vision – a spot that the girl very deliberately took advantage of.

_Clever little –_

Garrus lunged out, snapping his talons in the direction the girl was moving, fist closing around silk. Another rip split the air as the girl spun and tried to tear herself away from him. He quickly stepped forward, closing his other arm around hers, tightly gripping onto her wrist as she tried to break his hold. She kicked out at him, tried to wrench his arm up to her mouth so she could bite him, but he was both physically stronger than her and had the better reach – he neatly spun her around, dragged her arm up against her back and crowded her from behind, restraining her as best he was able with his angled chest and her skinny limbs.

She tossed her head furiously as he brought his arm around her collarbone, pushing her back against his chest and holding her there with slight effort.

“Look,” He panted, and she tensed, turning her head so she could regard him sceptically through one eye and a fountain of hair, “I really don’t want to hurt you.”

Her eyebrow shot up, and she gave him the human equivalent of a flat look.

“It’s true.” He insisted, “I just want to ask you some questions.”

Something flashed across her face, too quickly for Garrus to follow. A series of microexpressions the turian didn’t understand later and the girl seemed to come to an agreement with herself. Garrus relaxed his hold on her ever so slightly, ready to tighten it again at a moment’s notice. The girl tensed, and then relaxed with something of a despondent sigh.

“Okay.” Garrus said, “You can obviously understand me, so that omnitool has a translator fitted at the very least. Can you tell me what your name is?”

A cold regard and absolute silence were his only answer.

He sighed and tried a different approach. “I’m Garrus.” He said, “Garrus Vakarian. The Consort wants me to return you to her, but I’m hoping I won’t have to do that.”

The girl’s mouth twisted, but remained closed. Her eyebrow lowered, though, and the outer edges of her eye crinkled very slightly.

“Can you talk?”

No answer.

“Okay, right. Not sure if you’re being facetious or if you really are mute, and I don’t really have time to find out.”

The girl tilted her chin and raised her eyebrows in an obvious question.

But just what she was asking, Garrus wasn’t entirely sure. He sighed. “This is going to get us nowhere.” He drawled.

Her lips quirked at the edges, and she shook the arm that he had restrained in a more obvious query.

“Now if I do that, I don’t have any reason to believe you won’t run away.” He paused, and continued in a slightly less reassured tone, “Or attack me again.”

She tilted her head back and up so she could regard him more fully. Her eyebrows drew together at the centre.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

Her arm jiggled again, hopefully.

“Alright.” He said, “I’m going to let you go. Just don’t… don’t make me regret it. I’ve had a _really_ bad day.”

_Great going there, Vakarian. Way to establish your dominance and authority around a skittish witness._

He let her go slowly, opening his eyes in time to watch her turn around and rub at the wrist he had been holding. She looked at him with something close to confusion, a look that was heavily edged with wariness. Garrus had seen that look before, a lot of the time on the faces of the duct rats that had gotten themselves tangled up in the events of his cages. It was a look that was half-wild, edged with suspicion and a healthy dose of distrust.

Her eyes did a quick survey of the area’s exits, but Garrus had positioned himself between them and her in case she did attempt to bolt again, and she regarded him with something close to annoyance.

He shrugged and rolled his eyes in response to the look.

“Okay.” He said, and the girl’s focus was suddenly completely on him. He felt like he was in the eye of the storm under the sudden intensity of the stare, and his jaw plates fluttered nervously at the edges of his mouth as he tried to regain his composure. Through his head was running the various sensitivity courses that his profession had forced upon him, a list of things that would have worked in normal situations, but that his gut told him didn’t quite apply here.

More and more he was regretting his spur-of-the-moment decision to chase the girl down.

_Well, Vakarian, it’ll teach you to not stick your foot in it next time, won’t it?_

“Where did you come from?” The question slipped out before he was fully aware of it, and the girl tensed, regarding him for a long moment.

Then she relaxed, and sighed. She tilted her head to the left, pushing her hair off her right shoulder and exposing a series of intricate designs traced down her neck, placed in such a way that a batarian greeting of respect would expose them. Garrus recoiled, they were cattle brands. Caste marks.

“You’re a _slave_?”

And then a blue field of biotic power erupted around him, freezing him in place.  He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

_What the_ …?

The woman in front of him smiled winningly, looking him straight in the eyes with cold, hard defiance. She waggled the fingers of her right hand at him in a mocking wave, darted past him and out of his line of sight and just as suddenly as he’d managed to catch her – she was gone.

And Garrus was left to seethe in a Citadel ward, a blue stasis field holding him in place.

_Oh that’s it._ He thought angrily, _That girl is going_ down.

 

 ---

 

**A message from Officer Eddie Lang to Officer Garrus Vakarian, Date Stamped April, 2183.**

Vakarian,

Where the Hell are you, man? No one’s seen you since you stormed out of the precinct this morning. Look, Pallin said we weren’t to mention it to you, but I figure you listen out to the news reports anyway, right? Pallin’s headed up to the Presidium Tower to watch some big meeting that’s going down between the Alliance and the Council about your favourite turian Spectre.

Figured you’d want to be there.

Eddie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note:
> 
> This Shepard is an infiltrator, but has the ability to cast Stasis like her in-game counterpart. It's part of her character development, which I may or may not delve into in this fic - I haven't quite decided yet.
> 
> I also know nothing about hacking, but I do know a helluvalot about symbol recognition and how most of our reading/literacy skills are based on it. As such, I've theorised that since reading is mostly word-pattern symbol recognition rather than actual word-at-a-time reading, hacking could be much the same to someone with little literacy, especially considering that base level computer commands are a lot of simple, frequently occurring commands. Or it could be me just trying to jedi-handwave the fact that my Shepard's character is ever so slightly contradictory to itself. You decide.


	4. Fortune Favours the Brave (And Sometimes, Also, the Stupid.)

**10 th Street Precinct, Boston, Earth. Date Stamped 4th May, 2170**

“Please, you’re going to try and _intimidate_ me now? There’s a pin camera up in that corner over there, and there’s a person behind that two way mirror – I heard them sneeze a minute ago. You can’t do shit to me because it’d look bad to your superiors. Maybe if I was some ugly mugged bastard of a man you’d get away with it, but I’m a pretty young teenager with all the traps and trimmings.”

Next to Anderson, the precinct officer (Henson, from his badge) visibly bristled. “I can chuck you in a cell if you like, bitchtits.” He said.

The girl (their suspect, Anderson reminded himself) smiled, her bright eyes sparking with something like triumph. “Oh please _mister police man_ ,” She said with a fake sweetness “Do. It would be ever so wonderful! Give me three square meals a day, a shower and a warm place to sleep.” She battered her eyelids, smiled sweet enough to give Anderson a cavity; then slammed her fists on the table. Henson jumped.  “It’ll be a fucking vacation for me.”

Then she called him something rude in Asari Common and looked away, fake smile fading as quickly as it had come. Anderson smothered the amused quirk of his lips with a cough and a shuffle of the data pads in front of him.

Henson growled at the girl across from him. “I could just take you out the back and bruise up that pretty little face of yours.”

 “Oh eat me out or sit in the corner.” She snapped. “You’re so full ‘a bullshit you got flies coming out your mouth.”

Henson snarled, looking all the while like a man stripped of his most effective weapon. He was not an attractive man; balding and greasy, with deep shadows under his small, puffy eyes, and around him lingered a faint odour of body sweat wasn’t completely covered by his cheap aftershave. His uniform was creased, his glasses at an angle, and he had the foul temper of a man harried with the crime in his neighbourhood. He was the ‘bad cop’, the force of intimidation, the one that did the threatening enough to make the little people cower in fear.

And the ‘little person’ across from him wasn’t cowering – she was meeting the tactic head on, threats for scorn, bad temperament for barbs. Anderson may not have agreed with her chosen career path, but he couldn’t fault the bold way with which she followed it through.

As for Henson, however, Anderson couldn’t say he liked the man, or his tactics. It wasn’t that he blamed him for his attitude (He might not like it, but he understood where it came from) but more that the man continued doggedly on with the strategy when it obviously wasn’t working in an area as hardened as Tenth Street was. If this girl (Shepard was the only name she would give them) was any indication, the high crime and poverty rates of this section of the city were being poorly combatted by the local authorities.

Tenth Street was the kind of place that put an end to dreams of making a difference in the force, and the thing about dreams that ended early was they tended to turn into spite. The precinct was also under-staffed and under-funded, and most of the criminals (even the petty ones, if this girl was any indication) were hardened beyond the point where any empty threats by the force could break their resolve. It was the sort of area that people liked to pretend didn’t exist.

“Alright, that’s enough.”

The man started, and looked down at Anderson, who was watching the girl closely over the tops of his clasped hands. The colour seemed to drain from his face as he gingerly took his seat again, doing his best to look like he hadn’t just lost control from a little bit of ribbing.

“Oooh.” Said the girl, “Now it comes out who’s really in charge.” She smirked and leant back in her chair, making it creak as she swung up on its back legs. “So what’s your angle going to be then? Quiet dangerous sort? Paternal I-know-what’s-best-for-you? Silent and deadly?”

“Don’t talk to Cap-”

“Henson!”

The cop sat down, glaring resentfully at Anderson, as the girl’s eyes sparkled with malicious glee. She opened her mouth again to begin some new attack on the man.

“And you can stop provoking him.” He said to her. “You’ve made your point.”

She looked Anderson up and down, taking in what she could see above the desk between them. He knew what she was observing – his stiff posture and crisp uniform, his no-nonsense regard and probably (judging by the minuscule widening of her eyes) the fact that there was a small calibre handgun concealed in a shoulder holster under his jacket. She straightened out of her lounging position and rested her arms on the table in front of her, fixing him with her undivided attention.

This time Anderson didn’t bother to hide the small quirking smile that flitted over his mouth.

“What’s your name?” She asked him.

“David.” He replied.

“Can I see your gun?”

“No.”

The girl frowned, but it was a thoughtful expression rather than a disappointed one. Anderson had the feeling he’d just been tested, though what information she had just discerned, he wasn’t sure.

“Alright.” She said, straightening out of her slouch and folding her hands on the table, “What do you want me to do, military man?”

Anderson blinked in surprise.

 There was the shrewd light of the bargainer swirling through the girl’s eyes, and as she hunched forward in interest, her hair fell artlessly across her face. Anderson frowned, taking in her skinny frame and whippish arms. She wasn’t much to look at once you got over the brazen shock of her – underfed and gangly, her hair was greasy and even though her face and arms were scrubbed clean, there was the distinct look of grubbiness to her clothing. Larger than life then, but still trapped by it, and frighteningly observant of her surroundings.

“Who says we want anything from you?” Snapped Henson.

The girl gave him a withering look, the kind that had she been fully grown, or if she had a bit more muscle on her thin frame, would have been downright terrifying. “Smart people are talking.” She said, tone thick with scorn, “You are not one of them.”

“I could put your ass away with a _word_ -”

“Except that you’re not going to.” She cut over the top of him. “Cos I’ve got something you need even if I haven’t figured out what exactly it is yet. So, _Henson_ , sit down, shut up and _stop wasting my time._ ”

“I ought to have you-”

“Henson, if you can’t control yourself I will have you escorted from the room.” Anderson said. “Shepard is right, and you would do well to remember that. Likewise she would do well to remember that we are holding her on a charge of theft.”

“Yeah, and you want something from me otherwise you would have just written it up, slapped a court date on me and shown me the door. And not expected me to show up for the hearing, either.”

“You sound very familiar with the way this works, kid.” Henson snarled.

Shepard shot him a look of pure disdain and didn’t bother to answer.

Anderson leaned forward, the girl’s eyes immediately leapt to him, her body recoiling slightly before she caught herself and straightened with a scowl. “We know you’re running for the Reds.”

“You and most of the damn street. It’s not exactly a secret.” The girl replied. “And it don’t make sense that some military man comes charging down the street to book me for something everyone knows I’m doing. Try again.”

“I’m not trying to buy you with threats.” Anderson replied. “Frankly, I could care less about what your little pickpocketing ring is up to. The real problem I have to deal with here is your boss and his getting ideas above his station.”

“And you want me to… what? Sneeze at him? I’m not idiot enough to go up against Bolder. Not without some serious protection.”

Anderson nodded slowly, clasping his hands in front of his mouth and watching her reaction as carefully as we could. “And what if I could offer you the protection you required?”

It was funny the way Shepard reacted; her whole body jerked and went still, like a dog suddenly on a scent. “What did you have in mind?”

* * *

**Final listed effects of Lieutenant Shepard, delivered to Captain Anderson on Stardate 21 st September, 2176.**

_1x Standard issue Alliance Pistol. (Kessler Mk. I) Modifications: Extended scope, Inferno rounds chambered._

_1x Novel: Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Pub. Circa 1950 (2153 ed.) Worn. Bloodstain on back cover._

_1x hairbrush, black. Standard military issue._

_1x toothbrush, white. Standard military issue._

_13x hair ties, black._

_3x Alliance issue fatigues. Worn._

_1x Alliance issue dress uniform. Restitched along right shoulder seam._

_1x hooded sweatshirt. Black, worn. Small hole in lower front._

_1x nylon tracksuit pants, grey with white stripe along side seam. Worn._

_1x white singlet._

_4x sports brassiere, beige._

_4x sports briefs, beige._

_1x Copy Accreditation to N7 Ranking paperwork. Signed and dated._

_Please sign for the aforementioned effects below, and then forward a copy of this document to Alliance Command._

**Annendum added to bottom of paperwork:**

_Anderson, we had to keep the rifle. Shepard had modded it somehow so it disrupts shields on bullet impact. Looks like she jury-rigged the blast matrix with the universal code from a credit chit of all things. Attacks an enemy’s omnitool and knocks it out. Damn clever bit of tech. Shame to have lost her._

* * *

**In the Main Audience Chamber of the Citadel Tower; the Presidium, the Citadel. Date Stamped 2183.**

For some reason, Commander Kaidan Alenko never really liked public speaking. It wasn’t that he had any great fear of it, or that it even made him feel a fool – he would just rather have been working on the periphery than in the spotlight. He was support, he always believed, more than he was supposed to be the one in charge.

Also, his propensity for migraines had led to a distaste for strong lighting, and the lingering headache that played at the corner of his eyes meant he had to squint at the three aliens across the podium from him. Not a good look, he found.

For the most part, Kaidan was keen for the politicians to simply get on with the discussion, waiting for the point at which his input was necessary, but considering more the events that had passed since landing on Eden Prime. The beacon, of course, was distressing, but the garbled mix of images was something that he couldn’t consider as evidence for this meeting – even if he had understood what the images meant, who was going to take him seriously if he presented them as pure, solid fact? No, best to stick to what he knew – the appearance of Saren on Eden Prime, the death of Nihlus, the testimony of Ashley Williams and Powell, that engineer who had hidden himself away so well. Hopefully it would be enough.

If it wasn’t… well. He’d deal with that if he had to.

“Do you truly understand the severity of the accusations that you are making, Ambassador?”

“Impinging on the character of a Spectre, especially one with such a decorated history as Spectre Arterius reflects badly on not only yourself but your entire species if your claims are found to be gormless.”

“Frankly I find this to be an insult.” Anderson stiffened slightly next to Kaidan as a secondary screen flickered into life, projecting an image of the accused. Saren was… not what Kaidan expected. The grey skin, glowing eyes and cybernetics that were visible along his strangely elongated jaw plates were unsettling, but the real unsettling thing was his left arm, and the utterly mechanical look of it. It was an obvious graft, and its appearance disturbed Kaidan more than anything else about the turian spectre.

Saren looked like he was rotting from the inside out, or like he was being eaten alive by cybernetics and it seemed almost as if the council couldn’t see or were willingly choosing to overlook this fact. It begged the question of just how long the Spectre had looked this way and following on from that, how long had his association with the geth been ongoing? The spectre’s jaw plates widened into a mockery of a turian smirk, “Are we truly going to humour these human upstarts with a hearing, councillors? I fear your time is being wasted.”

“The geth resurgence at Eden Prime was indeed a tragedy, Ambassador, but I fail to see what good it does to accuse a Spectre of  treason in order to appease your own bruised egos.”

“There are eye-witness accounts of Arterius murdering Kyrick!” Snarled Udina, face purpling.

Kaidan was an observer, and the tight-lipped reactions he saw from the councillors were not a good sign. The asari leant to the side and whispered something in the salarians' ear who nodded minutely in response, before muttering something in turn. “The delusions of a man half-crazed with terror are not a reliable source of testimony, Ambassador.” Said the salarian, with something almost like distaste in his tone.

“And why would I murder Nihlus? He was an old friend of mine.”

Kaidan noticed the baiting tactic –not an outright denial, just a shifting of the focus from the point in hand to the finer details. “That would have just made it easier to do it – he wouldn’t have ever realised it was coming.”

“Alenko, hush.” Anderson’s face remained stiff and impassive as he spoke. It seemed strange somehow, like he should have been the one doing the accusing, like Kaidan was taking his role.

“And the legacy of the failed Spectre speaks his mind.” Saren said with a laugh. “Is this what this is? A convenient cover up by a man with a grudge, for his young protégé? It wouldn’t be the first time that the Commander has killed a turian, after all.”

“I would never-!”

“We do not believe that this was anything more than an unfortunate accident.” The asari councillor spoke over the both of them. “The appearance of the geth is unsettling, but there is no evidence that has been presented that suggests Sarens involvement in this matter. _Likewise,_ ” She said, over whatever Sarens smirk had been about to turn into, “It is documented in official records that Spectre Nihlus Kyrick went forward into the compound, separating himself from Commander Alenko and his party. To suggest that the Commander committed the murder is a deliberate misinterpretation of events - and also impossible given the situation.”

“What about the matter of the beacon and of the vision it gave Alenko?” Anderson asked with strain in his voice.

“I’m supposed to defend myself against _dreams_ , now? Really councillors, this is an embarrassment.”

“Could the beacon be recovered?” The turian councillor asked, and Kaidan was suddenly aware of the burning focus of all the parties present.

“I… uh.” He said, shifting slightly, “No. It was destroyed after it fulfilled its purpose. We believe it overloaded itself.”

“Convenient.” Arterius scoffed. Kaidan glared at him.

The turian Councillor sighed. “If the beacon was destroyed and its effects unable to be replicated, the ‘vision’” (Air quotes? Really? Now, that was just insulting.) “That it supposedly imparted onto Commander Alenko are inadmissible in this hearing. If the human embassy has no more information to present, therefore, we judge this matter to be closed and will make our judgement.”

Something flickered across Anderson’s face then – almost too quickly for Kaidan to catch it. But whatever it had been, Anderson didn’t act on it, instead opting to put a fist in front of his mouth. His eyes narrowed as if he was in deep thought. Kaidans head gave a painful twinge. There was nothing more, really, that could be done.

The asari councillor turned to the humans present and sighed. “We regretfully inform you that on the evidence you have presented us with, we cannot pursue any course of action against the Spectre Saren Arterius. He will remain a functioning member of the Spectre forces and receives our apologies for summoning his presence here today.”

“As for any further enquiries that might spring from this issue we find ourselves ready to listen to any evidence either side might bring forward. However, we warn the human ambassador that any further timewasting on his part will be punished by severe sanctions by the council to the human embassy. This meeting is dismissed.”

The holograms in the room flickered off, and the humans were left to exit the room in defeat.

* * *

**A letter from the desk of Ambassador Udina to Captain Anderson, date stamped April 2 nd, 2183.**

_Anderson,_

_The behaviour of the council is an outrage. To dismiss the legitimate charges placed upon their own due to (amongst other things, it must be noted, but primarily) your relationship with Saren is a gross miscarriage of justice. At least the leads we gave to Alenko were good – though I’m not too happy about bringing that turian into this matter. Vakarian’s a name that’s C-Sec through and through, so he’s probably little more than a plant to throw us off the tail of the council’s Special Forces. Oh, he_ says _he wants to see Arterius put down, but that will certainly be tested by the finer points of the mission. (You can’t trust any of these scaly bastards, after all.) The sooner Humanity has a foothold here on the Citadel, the happier I’ll be._

_I’m no longer certain about Alenko – He’s obviously not the sort of material that the councillors are looking for, going by the feedback crossing my desk. It’s almost a shame we didn’t find Williams sooner, but that name’s bad blood and blood always tells. You don’t breed from soiled stock and expect the pup to be any good, if you catch my meaning._

_I’m almost tempted to write this Spectre exercise off as a lost cause, unless Alenko produces the evidence we need and shortly. I don’t need to tell you that if he fails, human advancement could be pushed back generations._

_And that would be the end of all of my hard work, of course. Years, Anderson, and they could all come to nothing unless you pull your boy’s head out of his ass._

_It’s a shame you lost Shepard – now_ she _was the sort of spitfire that might have got those scaly bastards to see sense, without all this running around._

_Damn Spectres._

* * *

**A letter from the desk of Captain Anderson to Ambassador Donnel Udina, Date stamped April 2 nd, 2183.**

_You’re a rotten piece of work, Udina._

_-Message unsent, save as draft?-_

* * *

**Apartment of Captain Anderson, Human System’s Alliance Navy – Zakera ward, Citadel. Date Stamp, 2183.**

The lock spun restlessly under her fingers as she picked at it, each whirl and turn shuddering slightly as it came loose like so many tangled threads. The encryption had been upgraded since she was last here, but living in absentia will do that to you – she’d learnt very quickly that the world hadn’t waited for her.

She fiddled with her omnitool a moment to tweak some settings, and then went back to what she was doing. She knew better than to check around her to see if someone was watching – the fastest way to get someone to watch was to look shady – but it was still hard to resist the itch at the back of her neck that wanted to check, wanted security, wanted inside and quiet and being away from the noise and the lights and…

 _The lock, Shepard. We are concentrating on the lock_.

She shuddered and went back to work, fingers twitching, breath coming in short, sharp pants as her concentration strained.

Then there was a mildly protesting chime, and the door slid open.

She looked into the apartment and nearly ran.

The room played havoc with her senses – the same as she remembered it in most ways; it was subtly different enough that it hurt in an almost tangible way. Here, again, was proof that life had moved on without her, and she, half-mad and stagnated did not even have the faintest knowledge of where to begin to catch up. Of all the things that she thought would never change, could never move on, that-bastard-Anderson was always something that remained a fixed point in her mind. To see it changed, even slightly… well.

She slid inside, but lingered in the entrance as the door shut itself behind her, passing her eyes over the familiar-not-familiar place. The whole apartment had the air of the unlived in, with a thin coating of dust on the surfaces, and the lack of personal belongings one would normally associate with a hotel room. There were piles of datapads stacked neatly on the floor next to a large armchair, above which hung a digital interface that read the time in three locations: The Citadel, Arcturus and Vancouver. (Each helpfully had the location printed beside it, but Shepard didn’t even bother to try and decipher the words. The Citadel was always the biggest, with Vancouver below it and Arcturus above.)

 What was more frightening than the minor changes (Anderson had gotten someone in at some point to re-do the walls, and the private terminal in the corner was different to the one she remembered, probably some sort of update) was the fact that in places Shepard was finding her memories foggy and clouded.  Had the carpet always been this exact shade of white? She didn’t know. Was the coffee table always glass, or had it once been steel? Her arms unconsciously wrapped around her.

Then she cursed inwardly, forced her arms to her sides and her spine to straighten. Again, the uncertainty! Like she had met when the turians had dragged her off their ship onto the Citadel (The Presidium? Both? Neither?) These blank spots in her mind were things she had to fill, rather than be afraid of, and it was that thought that forced her further into the room, and away from the things that lurked in the dark places of her head.

Things like being pressed face-first to that strange artefact of the batarians, having her mind invaded and assaulted again and again with images she couldn’t understand – monster’s teeth and giant machines and-

_Focus, Shepard._

Right. Focusing. Pushing that thought away for now.

She scowled and let herself absorb the information that the apartment offered. It was a small space, and Spartan, with none of the small touches a permanent home would carry, but still not quite containing the slightly uncared-for feel of a stop-gap home. It was if the owner of the apartment was merely away too frequently to make the place truly homey, but small touches had been added here and there: a photo on top of a near-empty cabinet; a mug, washed and upside down on a steel sink. The kitchen provided nothing to her but more confirmation of the above – there were airtight containers of tea and sweetener on the bench, but no perishables in the cold storage or cupboards. Above the (functional) sink was a (plain) shelf, on which (utilitarian) glasses were stacked. Shepard frowned and moved on.

She stepped into the living area and glanced between the two doors that opened off from it. The one on the right was closed, and her memory clamoured at her that it was a space that she couldn’t invade, a bedroom perhaps. Her hand still hovered for a moment over the flashing access panel, but eventually she looked away and towards the other door.

This room, she had no such qualms about entering.

The door slid open under her palm and the room she stepped into seemed more unlived in than the others.

There was a small cot bed tucked up against the wall, under a window that looked out over the wards and into the main structure of the Citadel. She avoided looking at the cars sweeping past and the dizzying drop into space, instead glancing at the chest of drawers in the opposite corner, and the pile of boxes stacked none-too-neatly next to them. These, she thought, were something new – something that didn’t quite sit in the fading memory she had in this place – so it was to these boxes that she went.

The one on top, when she opened it, was nothing exciting. It contained a small amount of loose paper and a few datapads, on top of which sat a small velvet case that contained a medallion about half the width of her palm in the shape of an ornate, eight pointed star. The star was attached to a small bunting of ribbon, and it was of a heavy weight when she picked it up.

She gently placed it back in its case and put it to the side, going back to the box and shuffling through the paperwork. She lifted it out and began leafing through, noting reports and certificates mixed in amongst general correspondence. All of it was written and marked with the Alliance symbol in the upper left-hand corner. They looked like backup information, and wouldn’t it be just like the Alliance if they were – the hardcopy backups of critical information, tucked away in an officer’s back room. That was the Alliance, planning for every contingency except fire and damp.

_And, apparently, people coming back from the dead._

She frowned at that and turned towards the other box. This one had a locking plate on it, and seemed to be made of material much more solid than the last. She stared at it for a long moment, considered it and brought her omnitool flaring to life, ready to hack into its interface and get at what was inside.

 _Or,_ said the running commentary in her head, _You could stop being a dumbfuck and type in your ID code. You know, seeing as your name is on the side of the box and everything._

Shepard looked.

So it was.

She typed in her ID number, smiling in satisfaction as the lock clicked and sprung open, the box’s lid lifting up to reveal the contents inside. There was a surprising array of trinkets that captured Shepard’s attention, though she couldn’t say for certain if she remembered them or not.

The gun, at least, would be useful; so she took it from where it rested on top of the pile of odd belongings and tucked it into a very torn sleeve. There was a datapad directly underneath the pistol, and this she lifted and set aside before delving deeper into what the crate contained. Next to be removed was a pile of clothes, carefully folded and smelling faintly of mothballs. She took the most comfortable looking of these and set them aside for later, but the rest were haphazardly tossed in the growing pile of things she didn’t care for.

Sundries as well were disregarded (Aside from a singular hair tie that was used immediately to scrape up her stubborn mop into a messy bun), as were most things she found until she came across a small book with gilt pages and a cracked spine. This, she gingerly ran her fingers over, reeling in the faint smell of dust that clung to its pages, flipping it over and studying the long, brown stain that ran along its back cover. She breathed deeply and clutched the book to her chest for a good long moment, trying to calm the sudden wave of terror and bitterness that gripped her.

She had hoped she would never find this, that in the memories she had where she could barely tell what was real and what wasn’t that this had been something her mind had made up to torture her. But if the book existed, then logic followed that its original owner had as well – and that Shepard had actually been the one to get him killed.

In the silence of the room, the sound of the gun’s safety being switched off seemed to echo.

“Turn around very slowly.” Said a voice, “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

  _Shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. This part of the fic is fighting me tooth and nail. It should pick up update wise when things really start to get going, but for now... Well. Expect lengthy delays.


	5. In Case of Mistaken Identity, Please Break Glass.

**Apartment of Captain Anderson, Human System’s Alliance Navy – Zakera ward, Citadel. Date Stamped 2183.**

The door to Anderson’s apartment was unlocked.

He stared at it for a moment, frowning at the green blinking light, before he gently un-holstered his gun and held it at his side with his finger resting near the trigger. He put his hand on the door panel while standing to one side, and when the door slid open, he cautiously peered into the apartment.

It appeared undisturbed.

With an increasing degree of wariness, and a distinct awareness of his lack of backup, Anderson stepped quietly into his living room, scanning his peripherals with tiny, deft movements. He made his way softly along the carpet, cursing himself for a fool for not installing a program into his omnitool that tracked the movements of potential threats, and for not being more aware of _this_ sort of political ramification of levelling charges against Saren (If, indeed, that was what this was.)

Nothing in his living room was out of place, and a quick glance at his omnitool as he approached his computer confirmed it hadn’t been tampered with. He frowned, scenarios running through his mind as to why someone could possibly be in his apartment at all. The skill with which his door was hacked suggested that the person who had entered was more technologically skilled than the average person, but the lack of tampering on his private terminal suggested that technology wasn’t the intruder’s main goal. The data pads beside his chair, too, were untouched.

There was the faint sound of shuffling papers down the hallway, and Anderson frowned. As quietly as he was able to, he stepped around his coffee table and leant against the doorframe to his hallway, peering around the corner before slowly sliding into the hall. The panel on the doorway to his bedroom was still shining red, but he could hear slight shuffling noises coming from behind the door to She – the spare room.

Anderson felt a small bolt of confusion – there was nothing of value at all in there – before he grimly pushed it out of his mind and slid up to the doorway. He pressed himself against the wall, gun drawn and hanging ready near his thigh, and reached out his hand to press the door panel. Near silently, it slid open.

He stepped into the room’s doorway.

There was a woman kneeling on the floor in front of him, lithe and slender, with bare feet and a ruined purple dress that looked like it had once been expensive. Her hair was messily piled up on top of her head and visible on her neck was a series of black and blistered brandings similar to those used by the batarians to mark slave caste. Around her, Shepard’s things were thrown haphazardly over the floor and Anderson felt a hot thrill of anger race up his spine at the state of the piles. He couldn’t see her hands from where he was standing, but the quiet rage that was building in him was more than enough to drive him into the room, flicking the safety of his gun off as he went. He raised the weapon, levelled it at the back of her head, and spoke.

“Turn around very slowly.” He said, his voice almost gravelly with anger, “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

The girl flinched, but didn’t turn. Her head lowered slightly and (Anderson only saw this because his senses were on high alert) a nearly undetectable blue glow started rippling across the fabric of her dress.

“I wouldn’t advise it.” He said, taking a step further into the room, adjusting his aim. “I’ve got concussive rounds chambered and you’re not wearing any armour. I’ve got no qualms shooting you, girl – I just don’t want to get any blood on the things you’ve got scattered around you.”

Her shoulders tensed and the glow died. Anderson frowned. A biotic glow that weak meant that the girl was either very skilled at concealment or not altogether that strong with her skills and he didn’t want to test which it was. “Turn around.” He said again, this time more gently. “I won’t hurt you if I don’t have to.”

The girl’s hands slowly raised to the sides of her, the fingers of her left hand clinging to the sleeves of that side, something obviously bulky within. The other sleeve slipped downwards, showing an arm littered with old scars, thick red bands of the stuff around her wrist. Anderson winced. Some of the scars on those arms were ancient things, others as recently healed as only a few months ago. Just who was this girl?

She still didn’t seem to want to turn, and now there was a slow tremor vibrating across her skin. Then she shuddered all at once, and angrily jerked her head towards him, pinning him with ferocious, feral eyes.

Anderson took a moment to remember how to breathe as his heart fought to escape his chest and his limbs all tried to revolt at once. It couldn’t be possible, it just couldn’t be-!

Shepard was dead, wasn’t she?

And then she flicked her arm, the one that had been holding her sleeve up against her wrist, and out of the fabric’s folds raced a broken, low-calibre handgun. It spun towards him in something like slow motion, he didn’t even think to duck, nerves too rattled by the phantom in front of him, and all Anderson felt was a sudden pain to his forehead, and then everything went black.

* * *

 

**A letter from ‘The Consort’ to Captain David Anderson, Human Systems Alliance Navy. Date Stamped April 2 nd, 2183.**

_Captain,_

_I have reason to understand you wish to discuss some matters of importance with me. The ones of which I speak are, of course, those that involve the ship_ Mayfly _and her less than reputable crew._

_It is to my understanding that you are investigating into the shipping methods and practices of the crew and I rush to assure you that while in most normal circumstances I would have no interaction with gentlemen of that nature, my good self was pressured into service by a dear friend of mine – a matriarch and well respected woman, Benezia T’soni. She and I are old acquaintances and her insistence that the matter was one which needed my rather delicate hand proved to be more than correct._

_I believe you are investigating the unusual circumstances surrounding the cargo that was delivered to me. If you wish, please do come and speak with me on the matter as – due to unforeseeable events – I find myself in the rare and rather treasured possession of some expendable time. If you wish to partake in a dialogue, I will be able to do so at any point today._

_If you are unable to make such an appointment with me, I can impinge on the good nature of those in my employ to arrange another time for you as I believe this is a matter that does require a level of discrete discussion on both of our parts. Due, however, to the nature of my work, I regret to inform you that the only appointment that may be made available to you would be three to four months into the future. Unfortunately, the limitations of my schedule mean that any meeting at a point in the interim is impossible._

_I hope you understand, and I do look forward to our conversation, whether it is now or in a few months’ time._

_Cordially,_

_The Consort Shai’ira._

* * *

 

**Directly outside the **apartment of Captain Anderson, Human System’s Alliance Navy – Zakera ward, Citadel. Date Stamped 2183.****

Shepard stepped out of the apartment in a pair of comfortable sweatpants and a tee that was slightly too large for her. She had a pilfered credit chit in one pocket and a stolen pistol in the other, and with her hair properly pulled back out of her eyes she felt almost herself again. If, of course, you counted that she wasn’t entirely sure who ‘herself’ was supposed to be.

She tried not to feel guilty as she walked away from the closed apartment door, but she couldn’t help one final backwards glance over her shoulder. She’d cared for the person inside as best she was able – the man who threatened her was currently lying on his side on the apartment’s small couch. She’d made sure he was breathing normally and his heart rate was stable before she’d left as well – had even gone on a second hunt through the rooms to track down Anderson’s first aid kit and had cleaned the gash on his forehead, applying medi-gel and suture stitches to it. She had every reason to believe that aside from a mighty headache when he awoke, the man in the apartment would be fine.

That is, if Anderson didn’t drop by and find him first.

Of a more pressing concern to Shepard, however, was the matter of what she should do _next._ Her attempt to get the information she wanted out of Arcturus had been thwarted, and while she hadn’t really expected anything to come of searching Anderson’s apartment, her being accosted at both locations had left her twitchy with annoyance. What did a girl have to do to do some breaking and entering in _peace_? Was there some unwritten law that said if she stayed still for more than a few minutes at a time, someone would threaten to detain her? (Well, not detain, exactly, but – where was this train of thought going again?)

She gave a rough sigh and started moving down the empty thoroughfare, heading back towards the lights and noise of the main wards. She would regroup, think it out and start again.

It didn’t help that her options were so _limited._ She couldn’t approach C-Sec or any other sort of authority on the Citadel because she knew that was the fastest way to wind up back in the Consort’s chambers, and as much as she knew that the asari meant well, dresses and make-up and pretty talk of being ‘fixed’ didn’t sit right with her. She knew that it wasn’t what she needed, as well as she knew that – that…

She just knew.

_Very convincing argument you’ve got there. I’m impressed._

She scowled. She knew it as well as she knew military sung in her blood. She knew it as well as she knew that guns weren’t supposed to be comforting, but there was nothing that made her feel more safe right now than the weapon in her pocket. She knew it as well as she knew her name.

_The name we found out this morning? That name?_

She had a feeling that she shouldn’t be referring to herself as ‘we’.

_Fine. The name_ you _found out this morning._

Her stomach growled.

She shrugged. At least the problem of what to do next had presented itself with a solution.

* * *

 

**Audio log taken from Arcturus Station, Date stamped April 2 nd, 2183.**

_“Sir, we’ve recovered security footage from the area around the security breach on the Citadel.”_

_“I’m hearing some hesitancy in your tone, Soldier, what exactly is the issue?”_

_“It’s just… well. I’m having a lot of difficulty believing what I’m seeing.”_

_“Explain.”_

_“Perhaps, Sir, it’s better if you see for yourself. Here. I’ll take it back to where you can see it clearly.”_

_“…”_

_“Do you see why I’m having trouble, Sir?”_

_“That’s impossible. She’s_ dead _, Trader.”_

_“I know, Sir. Should we inform Anderson now, sir?”_

_“…No. Bring her in. We need to sort out what’s happening and where she’s been. She’s been gone seven years, Trader. Anything could be going on in that head.”_

_“But sir, it’s_ Shepard.”

_“I know, Ensign. I know.”_

* * *

 

**Inside the main lobby of Citadel Security, Zakera Ward Precinct. Date stamped, 2183.**

“Remind me not to piss off the big guy.”

“Williams…”

“Come on Alenko, even you have to admit the krogan was _huge._ ”

“He also agreed to work with us, _Gunnery Chief Williams_ , so try and play nice.”

Not perturbed at all by the reprimand, Ashley Williams flashed Kaidan a smile. “Nice.” She said, “So, in krogan terms that’s… what... only being moderately violent?”

“Gunnery Chief–”

“It was a joke, sir. Relax.” She smiled again, but this time it was sincere. “You’re so high strung at the moment I keep expecting you to snap and blast us all to our messy, biotic deaths.” She held up her hand in a placating gesture. “I for one am not going to upset our five ton ally if I can help it. I may be military, but I’m not suicidal.”

Kaidan looked at the woman next to him. She had been an unexpected ally on Eden Prime, and then had proved since that she had an excellent read of other people, and a strong moral streak beside. She was a more than competent soldier, in fact, if he was reporting to a superior he would call her excellent, but she was somewhat held back by the chip on her shoulder that was her family name. (Not that he’d ever tell her that.) It meant that she was a strange combination of overly familiar with authority and a stickler for rules on fraternisation, and in the short time he’d known her, he’d found it nearly impossible to get his head around who she really was.

At the moment, her levity was a cover for her keeping a close eye on the tenseness of the C-Sec precinct they found themselves in. Kaidan recognised the warrior’s ease in her pose, even as her eyes tracked the red-armoured krogan as he lumbered towards the exit of the building with a deliberately menacing air. She wasn’t the only one watching, either. Most of the officers in the general vicinity were keeping an eye on their new ally, with varying degrees of practiced indifference. The wariness in the air didn’t disappear when the krogan did, either. It hung about like a strong cologne, and it was more than making the place stink.

“So what do we do next?” Williams asked, adopting an easy stance, crossing her arms over her chest.

Kaidan frowned, bringing his own hand up to massage the bridge of his nose. “The Shadow Broker’s leads should be trustworthy.” He said, “But the idea of following them makes me uneasy. Udrnot Wrex can probably get us the information we need, given that he’s willing to work with us, but I’m not all that sure I trust his methods.”

“You mean the fact he kills people for a living?”

“It’s not that.” Kaidan said, shaking his head. “I mean, what else do combat soldiers do when it comes down to it? It’s more… I don’t know what his motivation is aside from ‘kill people, get money.”

Williams stretched out her neck. “Maybe that’s all the motivation he needs?”

“Somehow, I don’t think so.” Kaidan said. “He seems different from the few other krogan that I’ve met before.”

“So do we help him, then?” Ash asked.

Kaidan frowned and folded his arms over his chest. “Help a bounty hunter track down his target in a backwater den so that maybe, _maybe_ , he gives us some information on Saren?”

Williams shrugged. “It sounds like the guy he’s after is a piece of trash, if that helps any.”

“Not as much as I was hoping it would.” Kaidan replied, feeling the ghost of a smile tug at his lips. “I guess I just don’t agree with bounty hunting as a career choice.”

“If we let him go by himself, all this becomes theoretical anyway.”

This time, Kaidan did smile. “So, Williams, you’re saying we’re damned if we do, but more damned if we don’t?”

She grinned. “So do you want to help an angry krogan storm a casino, Sir?”

“You just think it’s going to be fun.”

“Damn right I do, LT.”

* * *

 

**“Raiders of the Lost Earth” Restaurant, Market Mezzanine, Zakera Ward, the Citadel. Date stamped 2183.**

The soup was hot and fresh, and all the better for being paid for with someone else’s money. The bread that was with it was crusty and soft and perfect.

Shepard let out her satisfaction as a small huff, leaning back in the booth chair she was sitting in and closing her eyes briefly in bliss. For once, it was easy enough to ignore the world around her. There was none of the tension bristling through her shoulders and the annoying feel of eyes following her through the hallways. She opened her eyes and leaned forward, taking another mouthful of the soup.

The restaurant she had chosen was near enough to a series of market stalls that it stayed in business, while still remaining far enough away that it wasn’t overly packed with people. She was seated in one of the corners, her back between a window and a wall, and she had made sure the seat she was in had a full view of the entire space, plus the pedway outside. The gun at her side was a relaxing counterweight to the incessant pressure of the world, even as she watched the occupants of one of the lesser populated thoroughfares make their way through to places unknown.

The soup beckoned her out of her introspection. It was warm and rich, and according to the description the waiter had given her, it was a mix of native Earth vegetables and otherworldly ones, flavours balanced by carefully blended spices to please every palate. She had a feeling that was code for “Earth Cuisine for Aliens.” She, personally, found the flavours were a little overpowering, but definitely preferred it to the blandness of nutri-paste and the asari method of cooking everything so much to perfection that the result was lifeless and awful. She dunked a piece of bread into the soup and greedily put it into her mouth, ignoring the slightly disgusted look of the woman a table over.

A furtive movement through the window caught her eye.

She frowned, picking up her spoon and absently twirling it between her fingers. She watched out the window through the corner of her eyes, searching for what had snagged her attention. People raced back and forth in a mild cacophony of movement, sound thankfully muted by the glass between her and the pedway. She concentrated on focusing on the middle ground as she swept her eyes across the small crowd, waiting for a movement to grab her attention, looking for something, anything, that seemed out of place. At first, she couldn’t spot what had snagged at her instincts, but then on her second sweep over the crowd, a small flash of blue on the face of a turian wearing C-Sec armour made her sit up a little bit straighter in her seat.

She bared her teeth minutely before forcing herself to relax. She put her spoon back on the table in front of her, pulling some bread off her dwindling roll with her fingers and absently starting to shred it. After all, while she had seen _him_ , she was next to positive he hadn’t seen _her_ , which meant that once again, she had the jump on him. And if he had the prideful streak she was pretty sure she’d seen, well.

She smirked.

It would probably be more than wounded by the little stunt she’d pulled earlier. He’d come at her with his judgement clouded, reactionary more than thought out. A half-cocked cop with a chip on his shoulder.

She could work with that.

Also, she was armed now. She wouldn’t have to rely on the one-trick-pony of her biotics, and he wouldn’t know that. She tensed slightly in anticipation, waiting for the officer to come into the diner, waiting to catch him off guard, waiting to find out just _why_ he was following her –

And he kept walking.

She blinked, then frowned. Her body relaxed from the adrenaline as fast as it came, settling back to her cooling soup now that the danger was passed. She started to watch the turian out of curiosity rather than suspicion. He moved past the restaurant, giving a quick, furtive glance around ( _Amateur!_ ) before she watched him stop at the doorway to a medical clinic, slipping inside in a way that was so obviously trying to be surreptitious that it hurt.

_Got an embarrassing condition there, do we, Officer?_

She smirked to herself, starting work on crumbing another piece of bread.

And then she saw them.

Men, human. Four of them. All in light armour in a civilian passageway. Each was equipped with at least one weapon, heading in the same direction as the turian had moved, stopping outside the same clinic and arguing heatedly, if their body language was anything to go by. Shepard frowned as one gave a very obvious order, and the others fell in line.

_Oh, just leave it. It’s not your problem._

The men stepped into the clinic. Shepard’s frown deepened, the hand holding her bread clenching convulsively. Four against one? Surprise attack? The officer’s chances didn’t look good.

_You don’t actually know that they went in there looking for a fight._

But why else would they be walking around in a civilian space in battle armour? She slipped out of the booth, leaving her stolen credit chit behind on the seat. She’d already paid for the meal after all, so she didn’t need it any more.

_You are going to get us shot._

She calmly walked out of the restaurant, hand on the gun in her pocket, moving steadily and purposefully towards the door that the men had entered. A part of her was terrified, another raring for a fight, ready to be let loose.

It was time to see if she was anywhere near as good as she thought she was.


	6. In a Battle of Wills, Firearms are a Necessity.

**The Foxglove Hotel, Boston, Earth. Date Stamped 13 th May, 2170**

Anderson paused in the doorway of his hotel room.

“I believe that the title of the crime you’re committing is ‘breaking-and-entering.’”

“Nah.” Shepard was slung across the rooms’ large, leather couch, dirty sneakers uncaringly propped against one of the cream-coloured armrests. Anderson suppressed his wince. “There wasn’t any breaking involved. Door lock coulda been cracked by a baby.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Well, a baby with a shiny new omnitool and the program Athena gave me for my birthday, anyway.”

“You were supposed to wait for me in the lobby.”

“I was getting funny looks in the lobby. Dirty vagrant, remember?”

Anderson rubbed his temples and tried to quell his irritation. He was torn between kicking the girl straight back out again and admitting she had a point, and neither would do him well in this situation.

He settled for moving past her to the other seat, pushing her feet off the arm of the chair as he went.

“Report, then.”

She sat up on the couch, expression turning sharp, grinning at him with her tongue between her teeth. “That’s it?” She asked, placing a hand to her heart in mock-hurt, “Straight to business, don’t pass go, don’t collect 200 credits? I’m ashamed for you, Anderson!”

“As charming and manipulative as you are, Shepard, I’d like to keep this short.”

She shrugged, slouching back into the leather seat. “You’re the handler, not the other way around.” She said, “If you don’t want the ‘how’s your family?’ bullshit, no skin off my nose.”

“You know as well as I do that this is a business transaction.”

“You’re a business transaction.”

Anderson gave her his best patient look. She grinned straight back.

“Report.” He said again, this time more insistent than the last.

The girl laced her fingers together and stretched her arms out in front of her body until there was a series of small popping noises. She leaned backwards, rolling her left shoulder thoughtfully. “I can get a meeting with Bolder.” She said at last, “But it’s going to be tricky.”

“Explain.”

“Does this place have a mini-bar?”

“ _Shepard._ ”

“Fine. Killjoy.” She brushed the end of her braid over her shoulder. “Bolder’s team is tight and I’m not exactly in the best of positions to get in.” She waved a hand. “Long story. Short of it is I’m a little on the out right now because I was dumb enough to get my ass in an interview room and didn’t see fit to tell him it had happened.”

“How’d he find out?”

Shepard shrugged. “Jade has a big mouth. She told one of the girls at the Rose about it and word got back to him. She probably was trying to get some sort of leverage – she’s always up to shit like that and it never works out for her.”

“Jade?”

“She was running with me the day I bumped into you. Probably didn’t notice her – she’s easy to miss. Small, dark hair, dark skin.”

“Can’t say I saw her.” Anderson said, frowning slightly.

“I’m not surprised.” Shepard pressed her hands to her knees. “No one ever really does when she doesn’t want ‘em to. Anyway, Bolder’s pissed at me, but Athena reckons she can get me in to talk to him if I’m careful.”

“You are aware that your social circle and mine don’t overlap?”

“Aware, sure.” She said, standing and stretching, “But I figured you’d do your research. Athena runs the Azure Rose Gentleman’s Club. Lovely place, I spend most of my free time there.”

Anderson glared at her over the top of his clasped hands, smothering his annoyance as best he was able. “If you’re trying to shock me, Shepard –”

“Yeah, yeah.” She said, waving a dismissive hand at him. “I get it. You’re cold as ice, Military-Man. Moving on.”

She moved towards the room’s small bar fridge, opening it and fishing out a soda from inside.

“You’re paying for that.”

“With what? My ill-gotten gains?” She grinned over her shoulder at him. “Don’t you disapprove of that sort of thing?” She popped the drink’s seal and took a swig, swallowing before she continued. “Athena can get me in to see him easy enough, probably can even sweet talk him into getting me on his staff, but the problem is what the job he’s going to give me will be.”

Anderson leant forward. “You’re sixteen.” He pointed out, “Prostitution of a minor is a felony.”

“You really think he cares about that shit? The man sells ‘Sand to ten year olds when he can.” Shepard was now opening and closing the cupboards in the room’s small kitchenette, seemingly at random, examining the contents within each. “Speaking of, he’s going to want me to be a runner if he doesn’t want me ‘getting to know’ his men and I’ve got a mild case of being able to freeze people with my mind. I don’t want to be _anywhere near_ Red Sand if I can help it.”

She moved away from the cupboards and opened a door set into the far wall. “Hey, nice bed. Are you sharing it with five other people or something?”

“Do you _mind_?”

“…Should I?” However, she closed the door and headed back to the couch, gingerly sitting herself down on the armrest.

“So you’re saying you need to prove to him that he needs you for something other than the above.”

“That’s the long and short, yeah.” She took another swallow of her drink as Anderson considered his options.

“What other skills do you have that he can use?”

She shrugged. “I’m smarter than most of his Generals, and I pick up on things most other people miss. I’ve been told I’ve got an eye for detail and a nose for trouble.”

She didn’t sound like she was boasting, merely stating facts. Anderson considered this as he looked at her. “You don’t lack for modesty.” He said, smiling slightly.

She shot him a puzzled look and he wondered if it was the wrong thing to say as her body language became guarded and sharp-edged. “I’m good at what I do.” She snapped, “I’m not going to downplay it. I can think rings around any one of those idiots but it works better for me if Bolder just thinks I’m a lucky light-finger rather than anyone with any sort of _brain_ in her head.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.” He said, holding his hands up to placate her. “It was a joke. Poorly timed, perhaps.”

She glared at him, he held her eyes. She was the first to look away.

“You’re asking a lot of me.” She said, quietly. Nervously, if he was being honest with himself.

“I’m offering you a lot in return. Your street band will have full scholarships to Grissom; you’ll be fast-tracked into the infiltration program of the Alliance military. You’re going to make their lives _better_ , Child. It might not seem like it now, but in the long run – a lot of people will be better off for this.”

She sighed and put her drink down on the coffee table. “I suppose I’ll believe it when I see it, Military-Man.”

“You will, Shepard. I’ll make sure of it.” He reached out and put a hand on her knee. She flinched slightly and then relaxed, looking up at him and offering a small smile. It was easy to forget that she was young. Still a child, all things considered, even though she seemed older and more cynical than she was. He thought of his own boys, both of them just starting their own studies, his ex-wife updating him weekly via extranet messages. He wondered if he would let one of his boys do this, if it were his only option.

He shook his head and withdrew his hand. Sentimentality was useless. As he had told Shepard, this was a business relationship, nothing more. They were helping each other to achieve mutual goals, and the girl would in no way appreciate that he was considering her youth as something that made her fragile.

“Let’s see how we can present your abilities to Bolder, when you meet him.” He said instead. “The trick is to push them without sounding like you’re saying you’re better than him. Do you think you can do that?”

Shepard nodded, hesitancy gone.

“Good. Let’s get to work.”

* * *

 

**Inside the Medical Clinic of Dr. Chloe Michel, Zakera Ward, Citadel. Dated April, 2183.**

Garrus hid behind the minimal cover that the partition afforded him, cursing himself for a fool.

He was painfully aware of just how bad the hiding place was – a human merely wandering over would be able to spot him and see him, but it wasn’t like he’d been able to find any better. One moment he’d been talking to Michel about a host of subjects – the information she’d said she had on Saren being forefront, but also on the places where a girl with limited biotics and a possible slave past might go to ground – the next moment they’d heard the lock on the door start to give and she was pushing him down and away, hiding him from whoever was going to come through the door.

“I don’t have any time to explain.” She’d said.

But damn it all, he was a _C-Sec officer._ After this was over, he and Michel were going to have _words._

There were four men, all human. They’d walked past his hiding spot with not even a glance in his direction, descending on Michel like a pack of varren around a pyjack. One had grabbed Michel by the front of her gown, hoisting her up onto the tips of her flat feet, and held her hanging in a way that Garrus knew was uncomfortable for humans, having done it himself on a few occasions.

The others stood around her, arms crossed over their chests, settling in with a vaguely menacing air. Garrus felt his hand slide to his sidearm as he took them in.

Two had Lancer assault rifles, one a Naginata sniper. The final, the one holding Michel off the ground, was armed with a high-calibre shotgun, which for now was strapped to his back, but was in easy reach should he need it. Garrus was _woefully_ out-matched, even aside from the part where it was a four-on-one situation.

“The turian doesn’t know anything about this, does he?” Michel flinched back from the speaker as he leaned in towards her. His voice was low and gravelly and vaguely menacing.

“No.” There was a frightened waver in Michel’s voice when she spoke. Garrus bit down hard on his irritation, hand flexing on the hilt of his gun. “I haven’t told him anything, not a thing about Saren or –”

“Who told you about Saren?”

The doctor gave a surprised, pained yelp as the man shook her. Her hands came up to his arm and she gasped, wrenching her head as far back as she could. “No one!” She whimpered. “The quarian said ‘Spectre’, so I just assumed –”

“Lying bitch!” With the sickening sound of metal on flesh, the man backhanded Michel across the face.

A hot flare of anger burst within Garrus.

“Please!” Begged Michel, her voice slightly muffled. One of the men near her let out a small chuckle. “Please,” she tried again, “I haven’t told anyone anythi-”

“Shoot her.”

“No!”

Garrus growled low and deep, hands around his gun, getting his feet under him in order to charge. He knew where the men were standing, he prepared to break cover and take the bastards down one by one if he had to –

The door to the clinic, previously locked, slid open.

Garrus’ head whipped around in time to see a smug smile die from the face of a woman he was painfully familiar with.

 _Not you._ A part of him begged, _Not now._

Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the scene before her with a calm, almost calculated air, before she looked directly at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Who the fuck are you?” One of the men demanded, whirling on her, bringing his gun up to point at her chest.

Garrus seized his chance. He stood from cover, sighted the man holding Michel’s struggling form and fired in one fluid, practised movement. The startled humans froze in place at the combination of surprises, and the woman at the door drew a pistol from the pocket of her sweatshirt - _where had she gotten that from? –_ And let off a quick, military double-tap into the visor of the nearest hostile.

Garrus blinked away his surprise, ducking back down into the cover of the bench and watching as she ducked into her own cover before the men in the room had a chance to process what was happening.

Michel screamed.

This was enough to break the two remaining hostiles out of their shocked stupor. “Go, go go!” One shouted, ducking behind cover at the back of the room. The other moved forward with a purpose. Garrus darted a look around his cover and saw him moving towards where the woman was crouched, eyes set solid and _angry_ , hand gripping her weapon with a soldier’s ease.

Garrus realised suddenly that she _was_ as soldier, or at least that she had been at one point, and that from the way her expression was bent into a mixture of concentration and determination, she’d been a good one. She was thinking the battle out, planning a strategy.

_Oh, those poor asari never stood a chance against her._

She looked over to him, gestured at her utter lack of armour and jerked her head in the direction of the hostiles with a pleading look.

Understanding flickered through him then, and he nodded, deciding that for _this_ , at least, he could trust her and hoping that she had decided to trust him. He ducked briefly out of cover, and back again before the sniper bullet could connect – _terrible shot. Did they even know how to use that damn gun?_ – And she nodded her thanks, before getting her feet under her like she was preparing to –

“No, wait!”

She darted out of cover, efficiency and grace. The hostile coming towards them reacted with surprise, bringing his gun up and around, but he was slow, too slow, as she let off a shot from her pistol and he dropped to the floor. She ducked back into her cover teeth bared in a feral grimace.

She looked over and met Garrus’ eyes.

He made a pained sound. Her lips quirked briefly into amusement before settling back to seriousness.

She held up four of her human fingers, dropping the last two with a pointed look in his direction. He nodded, repeating his earlier motion of ducking in and out of cover. Their final hostile let off another shot. He’d moved – at least he wasn’t a _completely_ incompetent sniper, but he was still probably the worst of the breed that Garrus had encountered in a while. From the look on the woman’s face, she was sharing his thoughts.

She pointed at Garrus, and then jerked her head in the direction that the bullet had come from. He nodded, before pointing back at her, and shrugging a query.

Her answer was a smile and then sudden, sharp movement. She leapt up and vaulted over the medical desk in front of her, bringing up her pistol and storming forward. Garrus swore violently in reaction, matching her movement and bringing up his own gun, sighting down towards where he knew the sniper was, waiting for the moment that he broke cover. The woman was deceptively quick – she’d crossed about half of the space, almost enough to make the hostile’s weapon useless, before he reacted, top of his head clearing the cover, weapon coming up to lock her into his sights, finger slipping into the trigger –

“Headshot!” Garrus crowed as the side of the hostile’s head blew out against the wall. He turned towards the woman, mandibles spread wide in an amicable grin, only to freeze suddenly in place.

She was scowling at him, weapon trained on his face.

* * *

 

**Report by Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, Westerlund News. Date Stamped 3 April 2183**

Unprecedented events have today disturbed public safety in the areas around Chora’s Den in the Zakera Wards. In yet another of a growing list of attacks against humanity, the nightclub came under fire from an unknown band of mercenaries earlier tonight. Mercenaries who, this reporter has on good information, were after the owner and proprietor of the venue, a man who goes only by the name ‘Fist.’

It was earlier in the night that the call came in to vacate all patrons from the premise as threats to the safety of the man were received by C-Sec, and passed on to the club through unknown channels. The threats proved to be more than empty as shortly afterward the bar was stormed by three well-armed mercenaries (one of whom is believed to be a particularly violent and well known krogan) and after a quick and deadly siege, the owner was left dead on the floor of his offices.

My audiences will recall that it is not the first time that a krogan has participated in violent crimes against humanity. They will recall that such brutish figures are prominent in many of the more violent and bloodthirsty crimes committed against us and are often leaving a swath of destruction in their wake.

As such, the event at Chora’s Den can only be called a _bloodbath_ , leaving in its wake a death toll of fourteen and one can only wonder how human enterprises will manage to stay afloat on the Citadel, if this is the sort of reception that they are to receive. One can only speculate as to why such acts of violence continue to happen against us as a species, but this reporter demands that action be taken by the council to reprimand and punish those deemed responsible for these dark and disturbing crimes. Humanity demands action in the names of those that were killed tonight!

* * *

 

**Report sent out to subscribers of the Citadel Daily News Digest, Date Stamped 3 April 2183.**

Gunfight at Chora’s Den nightclub and bar results in death of 14 prominent crime figures.

C-Sec is investigating.

* * *

 

**Apartment of Captain Anderson, Human System’s Alliance Navy – Zakera ward, Citadel. Date Stamp, 2183.**

Anderson awoke to an incessant pounding between his temples, and one of the worst cases of nausea he’d had in years.

He was lying on something soft, but vaguely uncomfortable, on his side with his back propped up by cushions and one of his arms tucked up under his head to prop it up.

He tried to open his eyes and instantly regretted it as he was assaulted with light bright enough to make his head spin. Everything was haloed in explosions of colour; every minute shift of his eyes brought another stab of pain to his temples. His head throbbed in protest as he tried to move, and when he finally managed to sit up, the world spun around him, pitching him forwards as nausea shot through his frame.

He groaned, letting his eyes slide closed again.

_How in Hell did I get a concussion?_

When his head stopped spinning and the headache lessened slightly, he opened his eyes again, this time greeted with the overly bright surface of his apartment’s coffee table. He realised that he’d been lying on his couch, the soft plush an ideal surface for sitting, but had never been one that he’d want to lie on for extended periods. A glint, like light on water, caught his eye, and achingly he turned his head. On the table in front of him was a small packet of painkillers and a singular glass of water. He blinked at the sight, baffled, before he reached forward and took the packet in one hand.

He downed a tablet more than the recommended dose and chased them with the water, trying to ignore the way his body protested every movement.

It didn’t take long for the medication to take effect. The throbbing in his temples eased to a dull roar, the light faded from unbearable to merely neon. His stomach didn’t quite settle, but it was better than it had been moments before and he would take his victories where he found them.

He reached a hand to his head, fingers encountering two small suture strips across his brow, the skin underneath fairly well healed. He gingerly pulled them off, wincing when the adhesive caught on his eyebrows. He stared at the strips in his hand a moment before flicking them away, standing and trying to get a bearing on just how he had managed to find himself with a concussion in his living room. Why, last he remembered, he –

It was like a punch to the gut, and he staggered, nearly sitting straight back down on the couch behind him. He caught himself on his coffee table, forced himself to take several deep breaths as information came flooding back to him.

There had been an intruder, he’d gone to investigate. He’d seen the woman in the spare room, Shepard’s things around her. He’d been furious, more than furious. He’d pulled a gun on her and she’d turned.

Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Shepard was dead. She’d been dead for _years_ , killed by batarians on furlough; his last conversation with her had ended in her angrily shutting off the communication line. The last message he’d received from her had been one from after she went missing, marked as low priority, it had come in with the evening news about the attack, just five words long.

 _I’m sorry._ It had said, _You were right._

She’d died, he’d buried his ghosts. Moved on.

It was impossible.

But those eyes and that hair and that face didn’t belong to anyone else.

Anderson scowled, hand hovering over his omnitool for a moment, half in a mind to send a message to Alliance Command demanding answers, half still entirely uncertain of what he had seen.

No, it wouldn’t do. He needed to figure out what the hell was going on first, before he planned his next move.

If it wasn’t Shepard, if his mind was playing a cruel joke, then a woman had still broken into his apartment and he needed to find out why.

If it was –

Well, he’d figure that out when he came to it.

* * *

 

**Inside the Medical Clinic of Dr. Chloe Michel, Zakera Ward, Citadel. Dated April, 2183.**

Garrus’ grip clenched around the hilt of his own weapon as he stared down the woman pointing a pistol at him.

He felt his mandibles widen slightly in a placating smile, which faded when her eyes hardened and her frown deepened. There was a touch of annoyance in her expression that he couldn’t quite place and something in it made him speak.

“What –”

She raised a singular eyebrow. He fell silent immediately as the hand gripping her weapon tightened. And then, slowly, deliberately she dropped her eyes down to the ground before flicking them back up to his face.

He felt his own eyes widen as realisation hit him and there was the sound of a gun extending behind him. He dropped to the floor and looked up just in time to see the flash of a smile cross her face before her gun barked once and behind him there was the sound of a deadweight falling to the floor.

He turned to look behind him.

There was a final merc sprawled out across the floor, judging by the bloodstain on his shoulder it was the one that she’d shot when she darted out of cover earlier in the fight. The man’s smashed visor and bloodied face told him that the woman hadn’t missed twice.

He stood up slowly, feeling his surprise announce itself on his face, before he turned and looked over his shoulder at the woman. She looked annoyed.

It took Garrus a moment to figure out why, and when he did, he cursed himself a fool.

He’d made a rookie’s mistake. He’d seen the hostile go down and _assumed_ that he’d been incapacitated, that a woman who he’d never seen shoot had accuracy enough to hit a target while moving. What was worse, she’d then _told_ him that the hostile hadn’t been neutralised and he’d _ignored her._

She’d held up four fingers, and only dropped two.

She was scowling at him now, cold anger lining every inch of her posture.

“Look,” He started, “I –”

She pushed her way past him.

It was his turn for anger. He whirled on her, subharmonics rising in a snarl. “Well, if it concerns you _that much_ , you should have dropped him the first time around!”

She ignored him, back pointedly in his direction as she opened the medi-gel dispenser on the wall of the small clinic.

Instantly, his anger turned to concern. “Are you alright?” He asked, stepping forward to help her. “Did they hit you?”

She looked over her shoulder at him tilting her head and raising her eyebrows, mouth pulled downwards at the edges. Then she stepped back past him and over the body of one of the fallen mercs, medi-gel packet still in hand as she headed towards –

Garrus swore.

The woman propped Michel up against the clinic’s outer wall, running her hand over her shoulder, concern lining her eyes. She ripped open the packet of medi-gel, gingerly applying it along the edges of a ragged, glancing burn on Michel’s cheek, a burn that looked like it had come from a bullet glancing across the edge of her face. Michel was shaking slightly, and her eyes were glazed as the woman rested a hand against her forehead, while carefully scrutinising her face.

A ball of guilt the size of a small country made its presence known within Garrus’ gut.

He took a step towards the two women, only to have the first turn and glare at him, teeth bared in a voiceless snarl.

“I want to help.” He said.

The way her expression twisted told Garrus just exactly how much the woman thought of that particular sentiment, but before either of them could do anything more to damage the situation, Michel placed her hand on the woman’s arm.

“It’s alright.” She said, in that strange accent of hers, “I trust him. You both saved my life.”

The woman looked back at the doctor with concern on her features before she huffed and looked away. She tossed the half-empty packet of medi-gel at Garrus and he caught it deftly, moving in as she stood up and stepped away from the doctor. “I am sorry.” He said softly to her as she stepped past him.

She ignored him.

He shook his head and turned his attention to Michel. “Are you alright?” He asked her, dabbing ‘gel onto the woman’s face and watching as the burn started healing itself. The doctor nodded, and then winced. Garrus heard the other woman rummaging around somewhere at the other end of the clinic.

“It’s my own fault.” The doctor said, “I should have just told them what they wanted, but the poor quarian was terrified out of her wits when she came here.”

Garrus frowned. “Told them what? What quarian?”

Michel sighed. “There was a quarian who came here to seek medical help. Poor thing was running a fever from a gunshot wound, but she wouldn’t tell me how she got it.” Michelle looked off to the middle distance above his left shoulder. “I was very worried, but she refused to tell me more. She said that she needed to speak to the Shadow Broker and not to anyone else. I told her to get in contact with a man named Fist.”

Garrus was back on familiar ground here, questioning a witness and finding answers. He sighed as he placed a bandage over the side of the doctor’s face. “You mentioned Spectre Arterius?”

The other woman straightened up from what she was doing, nimbly walking back to them through the desks, head quirked at an angle indicating her curiosity.

The doctor shook her head. “The quarian mentioned him only briefly.” She said, “She was worried that he was chasing her.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s meeting one of his agents in an alleyway near Chora’s den.”

Garrus growled low in the back of his throat, standing and clipping his gun back into the mag locks on his armour. “Alright.” He pointed in the direction of the woman. “You, stay here and look after Michel, I’m going -”

A blue stasis field erupted around Garrus and the woman stepped up to him, folding her arms over her chest and sinking into one of her hips.

He stared at her incredulously. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She shrugged, gesturing at herself, then him and pointing over her shoulder.

“Oh no, you are _not_ coming with me. You don’t have armour and you’re _barely_ even armed.”

She leaned in, gestured at the field that captured him and leaned back, one arm swinging around in a ‘what can you do?’ sort of shrug. She then reached behind herself and showed him her newest prize, a sniper rifle that she’d obviously pilfered from one of the mercs.

“That’s _evidence._ Put it back where you found it!”

She smirked, turned on her heel and started walking towards the door. The meaning was clear, either she came with him, or Garrus wasn’t going to be going anywhere for a while.

“ _Fine._ ” He snarled, “Fine. You can come. But you need to follow my lead, do you understand?”

She lifted her hand in a mocking wave and the stasis field dropped, letting him move on his own.

“You _are_ going to follow my lead.” He said, as he stepped into place next to her, one look over his shoulder at the recovering doctor (who smiled and waved him on, still looking a little dazed.)

The woman next to him smiled in a way that was not reassuring in the least.

Garrus decided that he hated her.


End file.
